Know Thy Self
by Whitewolves978
Summary: Fox goes on the biggest deadliest adventure ever, with the help of some new friends, and his old ones. he goes to new places around the universe. will he survive? no, he wont. please R
1. Chapter 1

i dont own any star fox characters or anything of the sort, althought they will be used in this fanfiction. please note this fanfiction is mine, and i made the new unheard of characters which will be revealed in the story.  


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Know Thy Self

Fox walked down the halls of the Great Fox. The ship has always been empty lately, ever since the angler war. Fox hated it, he really did. He missed all the good times that he used to have, and how happy he was. He even admitted to himself that he missed the bad times too. At least then, his friends would still be there for him.

There was this sudden stillness that he just barley sensed, and then as he concentrated, he felt it even more. At first he didn't know what it was, but he thought about it, tried to remember, if it could be anything he knew about.

It vanished.

There was a slight creak right behind him. He turned around. Boots, rotating on the metal floor. There was nothing there. He stared, and waited. He stood there trying to recap his senses.

He knew there was something there, he was sure about it. What seemed like hours passed, until finally, Fox gave in. he was tired, and had one hell of a headache. He relaxed, coming up with the conclusion that he was just hallucinating. He turned around, and walked into the captain's quarters, his quarters.

He got undressed, starting with his t-shirt, then his socks, then pants, put on a pair of light shorts, and another t-shirt. Fox plopped himself onto the bed, and got under the covers.

With a yawn, the very last thing that he did that night, was lazily drooling out the words, "Lights off."

Darkness.

He woke up in what seemed like the gloomiest place in the world. It was cloudy, and it was just light enough to see down the a few furlongs. Except there was something wrong, he wasn't on the Great Fox. His bed was gone, and the dresser wasn't where it was supposed to be. There was something wrong in the air; it was a fowl stench, made his nose burn. And there was something wrong with the sky. The clouds were pitch black, nothing went passed them, no sunlight, nothing. Except the clouds seemed close, too close.

He jumped to his feet in utter shock; he was on what seemed like a giant building hovering over a destroyed city. The buildings all were missing walls, roofs, all filling the atmosphere with smoke and charcoal. There was a strike of lightning. He jumped and fell backwards. He swung his arms in desperation to grab something. But there was nothing there, and he fell, he fell for a long time.

Until finally, the ground came into view, and all it was was darkness, he felt the pain, he thought it was real.

He woke up, he was in panic, and he jumped out of his bed, clumsily stumbling to the floor, heart beating. He closed his eyes and concentrated. He finally calmed himself down. And then the pain, the siring pain, he felt like he had chuncks of concret thrown at him, or worse, falling of a building, a very tall building.

There was a lone figure in the room sitting on Fox's computer chair. Before Fox could do anything the figure spoke.

" I can give you your team back, I can answer any question you want to know, and ill do all of this, but first, I need your help, now lets have a nice little talk." The figure pointed a blaster at Fox. Fox's only choice was to comply. Little did he know, this would be the biggest and most dangerous mission, he would ever have in his life. In-fact he wouldn't even survive to see the end. Only just enough to watch all his friends die.

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i know it doesnt seem that great so far, but its only one chapter so far, and just as a heads up, this story will be confusing at certain parts, but all questions should be answered near the ending (this is one of those storys that makes you think a little bit)

this is my first fan fic so, be honest if you honestly hate it just say so, and ill try to make it more comfortable for you.

enjoy


	2. Chapter 2

Chapter 2

" So you can get me my team back?" Fox took another sip from his coffee, and waited for the gray wolf to respond.

"Yes I can, but its very complicated. I will explain more when your mind is ready, your mind can't handle anything that I'm going to do to help you. At least not right now."

The gray wolf walked over to the table with a bowl of oatmeal and sat down at the table, across from fox.

"Yea, well, not to be rude, but this sounds like the biggest load of bull I have ever heard." Fox said after considering his response.

The gray wolf, without even looking up, calmly asked possibly the most random question ever, "Do you know why I like oatmeal? Its because, its soft, and warm. Its very comforting for a person, not to mention it's easy to make."

Fox just looked at the gray wolf, in an angry expression. He said nothing. Long moments passed. Until finally, Fox broke the silence." I'm sorry, what did you say your name was again?" the gray wolf laughed, looked at him, and then laughed again.

"I never told you my name, because I don't know my name. I used to, but that was a long time ago, but you can call me Craig. That's what I've been going by for the most I can remember."

"Well then Craig, if that's what you want to be called, what the hell do you need my help with?"

"I need you to save my home."

"Where are you from?"

"Not around here, that's for sure. I am done answering questions, now we go to find your friend, Falco"

Without another word Craig walked off, out the door, followed by Fox.

**A run down military ship, somewhere in the outskirts of the Lylat system.**

"Falco, you've got some company!"

Falco gave a large sigh, he didn't like company anymore, back in the good old days, he never had to worry about talking to any employers, that was McCloud's job, but ever since he started his new job as a hit man, he got very aggravated, especially dealing with all the jerks he has to work for.

"Okay Katie just a minute, I'm emailing an old friend of mine."

Fox entered the room and stood there for just a moment or to, and then finally realizing Falco didn't notice him. Craig came in through the still opened door.

Craig looked over to Falco, still working at his desk. The wolf grew a devious grin on his face.

He looked back at Falco, and then said "Hey buddy, remember me?

Then backed out the door. Fox tried to follow him, but he was too slow. The blue avian turned around.

"God damn it Fox, why the hell did you have to come here, you know I don't like dealing with you."

Fox sighed, and then put his hands in his pockets, bringing his shoulders up to his neck. He whispered, " I need your help."

Falco heard him, but he wasn't going to pass this chance up, Fox always took the glory, always. He smirked. He knew he would enjoy this.

"I'm sorry Fox, What was that you just said?"

Fox began to blush. He stuttered, " I said," He gulped, turning even redder. "I said, I need your help."

Falco was trying to hold back a giant grin, but it wasn't working to well for him, instead he just burst into laughing.

" With what? More importantly, how much are you paying me?"

Craig walked into the room, his fur hidden in the fowls of his cloak, just like he had it earlier that morning on the Great Fox.

"Actually, I need your help, Fox is also going to help me, and don't feel bad, your probably one of the more important people, actually."

Fox couldn't hold himself back, "What do you mean, he's more important than me?"

Falco interrupted. " Well someone has to save your skin when you get in deep crap."

Fox began to argue but, he thought and knew the blue avian was right, every time he was in a grudge Falco helped him out, every time. He felt ashamed; he didn't want to blow it, again. Fox had already lost his team, a few times actually. Now, when a total stranger comes in and gives him his chance, probably the very last chance he will ever get. He felt horrible; he couldn't believe how horrible he was. He had to try harder, try not to be a complete jerk.

"You know Falco, your right, from now on, you get all my credit, all of it. The only thing you have to do is help me…I mean…Craig," he motioned toward Craig. " Do, whatever this thing he needs done."

Falco looked right passed Fox and at Craig. He thought for a moment, considered the advantages, and the consequences.

Falco ended the silence, and put his hand out to shake Craig's hand. "Fine, I'm in." Falco shook his hand, and for the first time, Fox noticed Craig's wrist was shinning.

He looked down at it. The wolf's hand was made of metal.

He was about to say something, but he had a feeling he would get his answer soon enough, he wondered if Falco noticed it. He looked at his old friend; Falco was still shaking his hand, staring Craig right in the eyes. The fox noticed something that was never there before; it was something in his personality, something new. For the first time ever, Fox was afraid of Falco. He was afraid.

He was afraid.

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I'm not to sure, about this one, Falco is a hitman, which i thought made sense, and the prson who told him he had guests was Falco's fiance, Steph, (shes a mouse) just so your not lost, shes also his partner

i know its short, like the last chapter, but the good news is that i am going to try and update alot maybe twice a day, maybe. please R&R


	3. Chapter 3

Chapter 3

**Falco's cruiser (the Falcon)**

The three of them walked down the halls of the Falcon. Falco lead the way followed by Craig, then Fox. It wasn't a long very long walk, the ship was barley big enough for a dozen people, but that's how he liked it, comfortable for two, which is all Falco really wanted. It's all he really needed, until now, now that Fox was supposedly getting the team back together.

Falco stopped in front of a door, on the other side was the bridge. The falcon reached over to the wall, and slide a hidden slot open. On the inside of the slot was a handprint identification panel. Just above the panel was a glowing red dot. Falco placed his hand on the scanner. With a few beeps, and a green bar sliding under Falco's wing, the red light switched to green and the door slide open.

The small party walked in. Fox noticed someone sitting in one of the seats on the bridge. Falco, noticing Fox's expression openly explained, "This is my fiancé Steph."

The small mouse turned on the chair and waved with a big smile on her face, then spun back around, giving Falco a small kiss on the cheek. Fox didn't like her all that much; she seemed too preppy for him. In fact she seemed to preppy for Falco. Falco changed a lot, he never got into big relationships, especially with someone that hyper.

Fox looked around, he noticed Craig and Falco sit down on the two remaining chairs, leaving Fox to stand.

"Falco, Tyler called, he wants to know if you're available, he has someone he wants taken care of." Steph's happy facial expression was gone, now she was all too serious.

Falco typed a few numbers into the computer in front of him. "Tell him he has to find someone else, I'm gonna be busy doing some things for a while with…friends, he gritted his beak with the last word.

"Okay genius where the hell are we going?" Falco groaned, looking over his shoulder.

"Why Falco," Craig began, "you should know this by now, your smart, we're going to Aquatos, we need to find Slippy, don't we?"

Fox interrupted I don't get it, why do we need my team, if that's what it is?" Fox said out into the open, for anyone to answer. Craig was the one to respond to him.

"Trust me, we need more than just your team, we're gonna need mine too."

**In orbit over Aquatos**

**  
**Fox walked around the Falcon, it was boring, way to boring. Steph was still trying to find Slippy's file, trying to find where he lived, so he had some time to explore is new home. Steph had invited Fox and Craig to stay with them and live on the ship, for the meantime anyway.

Fox, was wandering around for a few minutes, until his stomach started grumbling. He stopped about halfway down the hall, and rubbed his stomach. He was in the mood for a nice juicy steak. Just as he was about to start walking for the kitchen, he heard some rustling in the room next to him. The peeked through the slightly opened door. He peeked just in time to see Craig taking off his T-shirt. Fox was about to ignore him until he notice something, his entire body was silver. Fox looked closer, the shining silver were plates of metal fused into his flesh all over his body, his chest both his arms,, neck, back, just about everywhere. The metal was part of him just like if it were his flesh. The few parts of the rest of his body, there were scars, tons of them.

Fox gulped, he had never seen anything like it before. He didn't know who this guy was, but he had a feeling he shouldn't trust him. He was different.

Craig put on a brand new T-shirt and turned around, catching Fox looking at him. The wolf raised an eyebrow, exclaimed, "What are you gay or something, cause that's a bit awkward, I mean I have no problem if your gay, just don't try anything on me."

Fox opened the door a little more. "What happened?"

"It's a long story, come on in, ill tell you a little story."

Fox walked in and pulled a chair out of the corner, and sat backwards in it, facing Craig. Craig sat down on his bed, planted his feet on the floor, and began talking.

"There was, an old chemical factory, on Venom. This chemical factory created products, such as weapons for biological warfare. A few friends and I were, part of a resistance group, against a man, who has destroyed the galaxy physically and mentally. Well, we came up with this wonderful idea that if we blow up this chemical plant, we could save the lives of thousands, even if we lost ours." The wolf reached over for a bottle of water resting on his dresser. He took a long sip, then put the bottle back on the piece of furniture.

He coughed once and continued. "So we took a few bombs, that my old friend made. He was very good with bombs, spent years upon years in the bomb squad for Corneria. So we sat down at a table, and made a plan that, each one of us would, take a bomb, and plant it in one of the chemical venting towers. We thought by doing this, it would crush the building in its own exhaust stacks. So the five of us went in,2 of us were caught, and never placed the bomb. The third bomber, was caught in his own explosion.

"Keira and I, my other teammate, managed to plant the bombs, by climbing the exhaust stacks, and dropping the bomb in, except I got shot in the back of the shoulder,"

Craig turned around and pulled the shirt down passed his shoulder, there was a large circular scar laying right there in plain sight.

"So, after being shot, I lose my balance, and fall down the exhaust stack, chemicals burning my skin and flesh. I managed to crawl out of the chemical vapors, to safety, where Keira picked me up in a drop ship, and flew me to one of our medical ships, out in the outskirts of the asteroid field. I'm sure you can guess what happened after that."

Just then, Steph's voice came on over the intercom, "_Guys I found Slippy, get ready_."

Fox and Craig got up, and walked down to the bridge. They tried opening the door, but it wouldn't work. Finally, Steph opened the door from inside. "Sorry about that, I forgot to take the security lock off." She smiled, and turned back around on the chair.

Falco walked into the bridge, and watched Steph land the ship and a small peninsula, on a deserted beach. They stepped out of the ship, onto the soft sand. The wind flowing through their fur and feathers. Up on the hill above, was Slippy, sitting down with his soon-to-be wife, Amanda, at a picnic table in front of a very large house.


	4. Chapter 4

Chapter 4

" I don't know guys, I'm married now, and I have children." Slippy sat down at the table. Slippy was very excited to see his old friends again; he had always wondered what happened to Falco and Fox. He remembered the old days, with all the good laughs. He remembered ROB, and how he always fixed him up. He remembered Krystal, he remembered her more than anyone.

Slippy used to have this gigantic crush on the telepathic vixen. He knew that she read his mind and found out. He remembered the talk that they had before she left, before Fox made her leave. He remembered Krystal telling him what he was going to do the next day. The words that would leave a scar on her life. He was going to make her leave.

Fox spoke, " But Slip we need your help, I know I'm asking a lot, but I just." The vulpine took along pause. When he finally decided there wasn't anything else for him to say he waited for the green amphibian to break the silence

When nothing came Falco broke the silence. " This reminds me of a mission I was on recently, I was sent in undercover, and I had to convince my target that he should come with me on his ship, since he had to talk to someone, but he knew someone was after him. In the end, he died an hour or so after he got home. I poisoned his cocktail."

It was Craig's turn to talk, " Falco, that doesn't help at all." The wolf leaned back on two legs of the chair and started taping his fingers continuing to observe the conversation.

Slippy started again, ignoring Craig's last remark. " I don't know I have to think about it."

A few moments after that, Falco's intercom rang. " Yea Steph? What is it?"

" Sweetie, there's something coming up on the ships radar, you might want to come out here, what ever they are, they don't seem that friendly." She sounded very worried.

Everyone looked at Falco, he returned their gazes, then sat up and ran outside. Everyone followed. Slippy ran into the other room, and told his family to stay inside, no matter what. The he opened a drawer in an old dresser, next to the front door, and ran out.

The caught up with the group, as they ran down the beach towards the Falcon. Just then, a gigantic flourish of heat passed over them, as a dark, odd shaped fighter flew just overhead. The fighter launched a missile, headed for the Falcon. Falco was about to yell something to Steph, but it was too late, the missile collided with the Falcon, blowing it to pieces.

Falco stopped running, he knew it was over, that he would never get to see his fiancé ever again. Several tear drops racing down his face. Craig came over to Falco, and gave him a pat on the back. The wolf didn't know what to say, but then again what was there to say?

The fighter, came back around, it wasn't done yet. The odd-looking aircraft started flying right towards them. With another missile ready to be launched. Slippy took his blaster and started shooting. It did nothing. The fighter launched the missile; it headed straight for Slippy's house. Slippy screamed at the top of his lungs, begging that this wasn't happening, but it was.

There wasn't much of the house left standing, the missile bad a very large explosion. Chunks of burning debris landed on the beach around the small group.

Slippy dropped the blaster and fell to his knees, choking on despair. He began to cry. Fox walked up to Slippy, kneeling on the ground, and putting his arms on his shoulder, trying to comfort him. It didn't work. Fox was never good at comforting Slippy, especially in a situation like this.

Slippy stopped crying and stared into the flames. " Fox, I'm in." It was then that Slippy changed into the person that would be remembered for the next 30 years.

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Ok im very confident about this one, i have had multiple ppl ask for more action and suspence, plus i stopped using so many comma's like everyone else asked. i hope nobody minds that i killed off steph too fast, but it had to happen

if you have any questions or sugjestions, please feel free to talk to me and thanks for reading, please review :)


	5. Chapter 5

Chapter 5

The small group sat on the beach in front of what used to be Slippy's home.

Slippy had stopped crying. All that was left in his eyes was utter hate, he wanted revenge, and he wouldn't stop until he got it. Falco was just the same; he wanted to get back at what ever it was. He turned his head toward the disintegrated remains of the Falcon. There weren't many flames still burning, most of it went out when the missile hit the oxygen tanks, leaving just about nothing still intact.

Falco had searched the ship earlier, but found nothing, Steph's body had completely burned away, all he found was her gold ring, which had been melted and fused to what was left of the control panel. He was going to miss her, he really was.

Fox felt worried. He wasn't just worried about his friends, and what they lost. He was also worried that whatever that thing, that had done all this, would come back.

" You know fox, your right, if I was you, I would be pretty worried to." Fox turned his head to face Craig. The wolf stared out into the ocean.

" What do you mean?" Fox turned back out to sea, but saw nothing. It was a wonderful day, the sun was shining, and there was a slight breeze that flew by every now and then.

" I mean, I know how you feel, you feel scared, what if that thing comes back? Are we prepared to fight it? Can we win? But sadly, the answers are no, we cant win at least not now. We still need to find Krystal."

" I was hoping that you wouldn't say that. This entire time I was trying to convince myself that you wouldn't make me go to her. Not like that, not like I'm going to."

Craig turned his head to look at the vulpine. He looked as if he approved at what Fox had just said.

" You speak wisely, for admitting it, I already knew of course but at least you can take the shame. You have changed a bit since we last encountered? You are going to need her."

Fox took in what he said. He looked out to see. Then he realized what the gray wolf just said.

" What? When did we last meet, I just met you a few days ago!"

Craig laughed. " We have known each other for a while now, whether you realize it or not. You see, ever since this new threat arrived, the universe has been changing. Reality has been bending under your very feet, you just haven't noticed, that's all. That's acceptable though, I'm the only one who can see theses things clearly, other than crystal. She just hasn't reached the potential she needs to see it. She needs practice."

" I'm sorry Craig, but I don't understand what the hell you're saying. This all sounds like something some teenage pup would play in a video game."

" Trust me, I know what you mean, but we've wasted to much time we need to go." Craig stood up, and extended a hand to Fox, offering to help him up. the two locked wrists as Craig pulled him up with ease. Fox felt the cold metal of Craig's limbs as he was hoisted up to his feet.

Craig and Fox walked past the other two and started down the beach. Fox waved his hand for them to follow as he passes the falcon and the frog.

**A few minutes later, on the edge of town.**

" Slippy is there a place where we can find a ship, preferably a big one, that can fit use all?" Craig turned back around and began walking through town backwards; he nearly bumped into a few people, but managed to avoid them as if he had eyes on the back of his head.

Slippy looked up from the ground, eyes watery. He was thinking about Amanda, his wife, and his kids. His poor kids, the oldest one was only seven. Tommy was

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only seven years old. He never should have told them to stay inside. They probably didn't even see the missile hit the house. It must be scary to know that you can die without warning.

" I think there's a ship dealer a few blocks down, we can probably find a small cargo ship there, one that could fit us all." And after saying so, he put his head down again.

"Good we definitely need to get off the planet, they know we're here, we must move faster."

Slippy was hurt; he didn't think Craig cared that much about his loss, or Falco's. Falco hadn't said anything since the accident. But it wasn't an accident, someone did it purposely, and they would pay.

Fox pointed down the road. " There's the ship dealer. Before we go though, why do we need to buy a ship, if I can call in the Great Fox?" Fox made an excellent point. He felt very proud of himself for finally asking the most obvious question. It was a shame that he got such a disappointing answer as this one.

" Because," Craig began, " our enemy knows exactly where we are you ship will be shot at continuously, not to mention with the technology of their standards, it wont be hard for them to take it down, a pulse cannon would make quick work of your ship."

Slippy cut Fox short, " No tats impossible, pulse cannons are only in the design form right now, Corneria is still having trouble creating a pulse electron base that can regenerate within the cavity of its own cells, if there was one, it could only have one small shit, about the size of a hand-blaster round."

Craig turned around to face Slippy, his eyes wandered across the frog's facial expression. " All will be clear to you soon, trust me, there's not much time left."

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i thought this chapter went pretty well, i took some more time with this one than usual

no sorry, i didn't get up to krystal yet, but i did add some clues about Craig so watch out for those.

thanks for reading, please review


	6. Chapter 6

Chapter 6

" How many credits are we talking about?" Craig counted the credits he held in his hand. The dealer shook his head.

"1,700, sorry, but I don't think you have enough." The man continued typing on his computer. " We have another selection that can fit your friends, that's only 1,100."

" Hold on one second." The wolf walked over to his friends who were looking at a fairly nice ship. It was slick and painted with a shinning red.

" You guys don't have any extra cash on you do you?"

Everyone searched their wallets and handed what they had to him. It wasn't that much, they only had about a 6 hundred dollars between them. It obviously wasn't enough for a new ship, but if they were lucky they could at least rent one. Craig walked back over to the desk.

" Okay, we don't have enough to buy one, is it ok if we rent one?" the turtle fixed his reading glasses, and started searching on his computer again. It took a while, but the merchant smiled. " we do have one that you can use. Its about 100 credits a day."

"What kind of ship is it?"

" It's a mini cruiser, it's a common family craft. It should fit all of you comfortably." Craig was silent for a few moments. This wasn't an easy choice. If they were discovered there was no possible way they could defend themselves in a ship that weak. They probably wouldn't even be able to fly away fast enough if they were caught. In the end he figured it would be better to take that risk. Besides, they wouldn't completely destroy the ship, not with fox on it.

" Okay you've got yourself a deal." He put his hand out to shake with the ship dealer. At first the merchant wasn't entirely sure why the wolf wanted to shake his hand. But he thought it was a friendly gesture and shook it.

" Now here are your keys, hand if I can just get your ID ill put it through the scanner." This is what the fox was afraid of. He didn't want to be tracked by anyone. Without warning Craig grabbed the keys from the ship dealer, and pushed the button on the keypad. One of the ships to the near left of the entrance beeped, and the driver's door slid open.

" Quick guys get in." at first nobody knew what to do. But as the security hounds came running out the door trying to arrest them. Fox, Falco, and Slippy jumped into the ship. Craig floored it, and off they went.

A little before they exited the atmosphere or Aquaos. Craig set it into autopilot, letting the small computer fly out into space for them. Craig punched a whole under the control panel of the ship, he scurried through it for a little while.

Falco leaned over from the aisle of the ship, and asked, " What the hell are you doing?"

Craig didn't turn around, " I'm looking for a tracking beacon, and they always put something like that in rental ships, so that way, people don't do what we just did. Aha found it." Craig ripped it off the inside of the box, and crushed it within his hands.

Planet Kew 6:00 pm

" Would you like another drink miss?" the bartender curled his little mustache.

Kursed sighed, and passed her glass over to the husky. She had been coming to this bar every night since she left Star Wolf. Everyone knew who she really was back then, before she became the bounty hunter she was, back when she was Krystal. She was surprised that nobody recognized her anymore. How many naturally blue vixens do you see every day?

The bar tender handed her another glass of wine. She didn't like beer. It was too irrational for her, too exciting. She wanted the nice calm tenderness of an excellent, sweet wine.

Hey, Jon? If you loved someone, and they turn you down, what would you do?" Krystal remembered everything that happened as if it was yesterday, but it wasn't it was two years ago. She felt foolish for not have letting it go by now. But how could she? She loved him.

" Well, Kursed, you should be over him by now."

She new what her answer would be, but she asked anyway. "What do you mean, get over it?"

Jon coughed from the back of his throat, " when I say get over it, I don't mean forget about it. When I say get over it, I mean, remember it and learn your lesson, and not letting it hold you back."

It was about then that a clad coated figure sat down at the bar next to her. There was something about him that the vixen sensed as he sat down. He felt stronger than most other people. She sensed a powerful mind. She could always try and read it, but if he was stronger, she could be hurt. She voted against it.

" Smart choice, I'm not someone you would want to try and probe, I've got to much in my mind, you wouldn't be able to handle it." His response didn't surprise her; most people with strong minds like his would be able to guess on things like that. She had never seen someone like this, except from her home planet, people of her kind. The next thing he said, on the other hand did surprise her.

" May I buy you a drink, Krystal." Without waiting for a response, he ordered some drinks, " Yes, I'll have two beers," he looked over to the blue fox, " do you want anything?"

Krystal was annoyed, she didn't know who this guy was, or what his intentions were, but she didn't like him. " Look buddy I don't know who you are, but if you don't leave, you wont be leaving without any scars, she glinted her knife, which was strapped to her arm, covered up by her sleeve.

The figure smirked and turned on the seat, allowing her to see more of the man's figure, he was a wolf. He had gray fur. He had a cute face, it made him seem innocent, but that was far from the truth.

" That's a nice toy, but I have more people to play with." He cocked his head over to a corner table, three cloaked characters, just as he was. " Now let me introduce myself, my name is Craig." He motioned for one of his partners to come over to the bar. " And this is my friend Fox McCloud." The wolf got up, handed the two beers to Fox and sat down at the table with Slippy and Falco. He watched Fox sit down next to Krystal.

Falco raised an eyebrow, " how do you think he'll do?" he took a sip from his beer. He stretched his feet out under the table and leaned back a bit.

Slippy gave him and answer, " I don't know, but he better not fuck up like last time." Slippy chugged his beer, and asked for another one, that was his forth beer that night.

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i thought that this one came out good, for a new guys standards, it was better than the last, i made some spelling errors in their because my computer "corrected" them for me, like if i type Krystal, then when i hit space it changes to crystal

so yea, they get krystal, and in the next chapter or two, is when the story is supposed to actually start taking place, this is only getting his team back, so this isnt even really the begining

please R&R


	7. Chapter 7

Chapter 7

" Listen, do you honestly think I would come back to get you. Especially like this?" Fox had a stern look on his face. He was very serious about this. She could tell, without reading his mind, that everything he had just told her was true. It definitely wasn't a trick to get Star Fox back together for himself, but because the universe needed Star Fox.

" Well, ill think about it, for now, we go back to my place." Kursed chugged the rest of her beer, and started off. Fox waved for Craig and the others to follow. Slippy had a bit trouble. Those few beers he had weren't helping either. He was flat out drunk. He staggered out the door, chasing after his friends.

" So all this time you've been a bounty hunter?" Craig took a sip of wine. He drank it from the bottle, which he stole from behind the counter. He didn't like beer. Wine had sweetness in it, unlike beer.

Kursed was actually happy to answer this; it was better than those other question she was asked. " At first no, I was part of Star Wolf, but I felt insecure with them, and ran away to become a bounty hunter. What about you Craig, what's your story?"

Fox interrupted Craig, " Yea Craig what is your story?" everyone backed fox up, even the drunk frog.

Craig started, " Well if you must know," it was just then that they heard someone shout, " Freeze O'Donnell, you're under arrest for rebellious acts against the President and Chief. It was a well-built hound, leading a squad of Cornerian soldiers.

Craig didn't even get to finish what he was saying, he dove behind a dumpster. Everyone else copied his movements and jumped for cover, Slippy needed some help though. The Cornerian soldiers started shooting. Krystal and Falco both pulled out their blasters and started firing back, from behind someone's car.

" What the fuck is going on? Why are their soldiers shooting at us?" Fox looked pissed, he wasn't sure whose side he was on anymore.

Craig pulled out his blaster. Fox didn't know he even had a blaster on him this whole time, except it didn't look like a blaster, it was different. Craig shot a few rounds of blind fire over the dumpster.

" Shit, we're running out of time. They're closer than I thought. We have to go, back up will be here soon, this is only a patrol." The wolf shot a few extra rounds. " Fox get over to that ally, and cover me from there!"

Fox complied. He pulled out his blaster and started shooting as he ran out from behind the dumpster and into the ally. He put his back to the wall, blaster ready. Craig shouted over to him, " Fox, cover me!"

Fox turned around the corner, concealing half of himself behind the corner. He began shooting as Craig dashed across the street. He slid behind the car.

" Krystal, you cover Falco while he gets Slippy out of here, and take these." Craig handed her a belt of odd-looking grenades, but one of them was different. " You see that grenade? Throw that one last, but make sure you're completely out of range. This little sucker packs a punch."

Craig ran back over to where Fox was, dodging plasmatic bullets. " When Krystal starts throwing grenades, run to where we landed, take Falco and Slippy there." they both heard a large bang. Krystal had started throwing grenades. " Fox go!" Craig turned the corner, covering Fox as he made his escape.

Fox stumbled a bit as he tried to help Falco to get Slippy out of there. The last thing he saw was Craig jump on one unlucky Cornerian soldier, and stab him with a retractable blade, concealed in the wolf's metallic arm.

The small family cruiser sat in the parking lot. Fox was worried whether or not he was followed. He was positive that Craig and Krystal would have taken out all of the men that would have gone after them. Craig and his blade. Fox had never even thought about Craig concealing a retractable knife in his arm. It wasn't even a knife; it was ling enough to be a sword.

It was about then that crystal had wandered over to them. She came up beside him as he sat there thinking. He hadn't even noticed that she was limping. All he was concerned about was that there were Cornerian soldiers coming after him. And why did that call Craig, O'Donnell?

Krystal broke his thoughts, " Hey Fox, check if there's a medical kit in the ship, I screwed up my leg pretty badly." The vixen sighed. This wasn't the worse that she had been in. he leg was covered in burnt blood, and her arms were scrapped up pretty badly. There was blood dripping through the sleeves. She was hurt badly.

Fox turned his head to look down at Krystal's leg. He smirked " How'd you manage that?" The blue fox grinned. " That damn grenade. I underestimated it, but all I know is that that was no ordinary grenade. It lit the entire block on fire, Craig along with it as far as I could tell. He just got buried in the flames. I hope he's alright."

Fox laughed. He finally figured it out. He was very proud of himself and felt very confident of his hypothesis. " Did you hear what they called him? They called him O'Donnell. And if it's Wolf, good riddance."

Krystal frowned. She knew something that he didn't. He could sense it. There was something she was hiding. " Krystal is there something you would like to tell me?"

" When you kicked me of the team," she gave him a hatful stare, " I went back to Star Wolf, and trust me. As strong as wolf is, he's not strong enough to keep my thoughts out. Craig on the other hand is almost4 times stronger than me mentally, making my powers useless against him. There's no doubt he's not wolf, there's no way."

It was about then that Fox saw Craig walking down the road towards them. He barley loomed like he was touched, the only thing different than him were his arms. What used to be shinning metal was now covered in his victim's blood. He stopped in front of the group and took a deep breath. " Sorry I took so long, but I had to get this." He pulled out an engine, it was a small engine, but it had all the cavity's and chambers of an engine. Except it was small, very small."

Fox grew impatient, and pulled his blaster out, and pointed it in Craig's face. " God damn it, I'm getting pissed, who, or what the hell are you? Where are you from?"

" All of your answers will be answered in sure time, for now, Slippy has to put this into the ship's engine."

"No Craig," this time Krystal spoke. " I want answers too." She watched his every move.

Craig sighed again, " Fine, my name is Craig O'Donnell, Wolf's only son, and I'm from the future."

* * *

sorry for long wait, myu birthday was on thursday, very busy

yea i know the ending is kinda...boring, cheesy, crappy, noobish, odd ( i can go on for hours) but it was the only way i could get the story to come out the way i need it to , that way it follows the rest of the plot

please R&R and again i apologize for its latness and sloppyness at the end


	8. Chapter 8

Chapter 8

"What do you mean you don't know what it is?" Craig shouted at Slippy, "You're the one who designed it and made the finished copy! "

Slippy fidgeted with the engine in the ship. He was very aggravated. Sweat dripped down his green face. He had Greece cover all over his hand, and had cold plasmatic wastes from the engines main battery splattered over his forearms.

"I mean, I'm not sure where the hell this thing goes in the engine, the design of this…thing, doesn't match up anywhere in the engine of this ship," he stood up straight and wiped the sweat off his face with a rag. "We need the type of engine this thing was designed for."

Fox gritted his teeth. "I'm sick and tired of all this bull-." Krystal cut him off. "Do you think we can manage to get the proper engine for the ship?" she leaned up against the hull of the cold ship. She had been waiting for somebody to stop the bickering between everyone. Falco chuckled. He was lying down on the floor of the ship, his head rested on a pillow he found in the small cargo hold.

"You know what would be fun, killing a bunch of the bastards and taking their ship." Then he was silent. Fox considered the idea, but by the time he had decided, Craig was already slinging a backpack over his back. Kursed was checking the bandages on her foot, and slide her boot right over her wound. Slippy was wiping the grease of his arms. He had a smile on his face that the orange fox didn't like. Slippy was changing; at that moment his family died he was different. He was angry, and he wanted his revenge. And Falco was stretching his legs out, getting ready to go. He didn't seem all that different at first, but Falco was upset about Steph still. He loved her, and now some guy in a fighter comes and takes her away.

It was time to go. Fox had everything he needed. He always kept his weapons and tools on him. Most of his more powerful weapons were on the Great Fox out where he left it, when he had found Falco. Even though it was only about a day ago, it seemed like forever. He wondered if ROB was okay. He hadn't even thought about it since his suggestion to call it in to get off Aquos.

Craig grabbed his shoulder, and gestured for him to follow. He could see Krystal, Slippy and Falco climbing up a fire escape off the city. It was probably the only place you could actually find one. It was the only place on Kew you could actually find buildings more than four stories high too.

The small party ran over buildings jumping from roof to roof, silently, so that no pedestrian would hear, or see them. But there weren't really that many. In-fact there was only a dozen or so walking on a block. It wasn't hard to keep up. Craig led the way, and made most of the jumps easier for the slower part of the group. It was late afternoon by the time that they reached the end of town that way. There wasn't much to talk about; it was only a five-minute run. Nobody was truly tired, but didn't turn down the chance to sit and rest.

"I found the hyperspace worm whole generator in a small cruiser, about three miles outside of town that way," Craig pointed out into the forest that surrounded the city."

The forest was dense. It stretched out over most of the planet. It was smelly, damp and rocky. The walk was hard on Fox's feet. It wasn't close to the worst he's been in, but the every few un-even stones messed up his footing a lot. He looked ahead, and saw Craig's dark blue backpack. Fox didn't even know that Craig had a backpack. He wondered what was in it. It was probably grenades, or a machine gun. He pondered at the thought.

Behind Fox was Krystal. He knew that she could be reading his mind at any moment. He had to be careful about what he thought about. But that's what got him. He thought about all of the things that he shouldn't have thought about if Krystal had read his mind. He thought about all those times they had kissed watching a movie, and all the other naughty times they shared.

It was about then that his thoughts distracted him so much that he lost his footing and tripped. He yelped. He felt pains in his shins. He pulled his pants up. His leg was scratched up, and it looked as if it was going to bruise in a few moments. He got up, and stretched his legs. He thought the scratch was nothing. But it pained him. All of those times, sitting in the Great Fox weakened him. He remembered just sitting there, not even bothering to train. He had become weak.

None of his friends helped him up, only walked right by, all of them except Krystal, she had stopped and looked at him for a few seconds, and then continued in line. She didn't like him, in-fact she despised him. She wanted to hate him. But she felt this loneliness. She missed him. But she hated him. She still hates him. And yet there's always that urge to go back to him. But she refused to do that, like this. Fox quickly got up and returned in line.

They finally came to a clearing; there were three cruisers, parked in the grass, landing gears killing the grass beneath them. Fox turned his head to look at the wolf. Craig had a puzzled and worried expression on his face. This was the first time he had seen the wolf worried. Krystal and Falco had noticed also. Falco broke the worrying silence, "What's wrong wolfy? Cat got your tongue?" Craig didn't look amused. He only answered plainly, "Last time I was here there was only one cruiser. And we had to fight a dozen soldiers. There are two more now, which means more enemies." Just as he said that a pair of enemy troops walked passed them by about ten feet.

"Fox shoot the guy farthest from us when I kill the other guy, Krystal and Falco make your way to the other side and get ready to ambush when you hear Fox's blaster, now go." Falco and Krystal began moving to the other side. Craig got up from where he was kneeling. And opened his backpack. In his backpack where two belts, and three leather pouches. Attached to the belts were knives, and needles were protruding out of the leather pouch casings. Each blade and needle was fitted into the belt so that they wouldn't fall out unless pulled upon.

Craig placed the three pouches of needles on him, one for each shoulder, and one on his left, lower back. Then he strapped the two belts of knives on him. One went on his waist and the other across his chest.

Fox chuckled, even though he thought he knew what it was, he wasn't all that surprised to see the wolf gear up, in dozens of gleaming blades. They looked like very nice blades, especially two of them, both on different sides of the waste. There was something different about them. They looked exactly the same; just the blades were rotated to face different direction. The blades also looked like the inside of the blade could be removed, leaving the outside blade left.

He zipped the backpack back up, and threw it on the ground where he was now standing, still hidden by the trees. And went off, knowing that Fox would watch his back.

The vulpine pulled out his blaster and aimed at the two soldiers that where nearly turning around one of the gleaming ships. Then all of a sudden one of them stopped and dropped to his knees. The other soldier realized this and got ready to shoot at anything and everything. Fox gritted his teeth and pulled the trigger. A red beam of plasma soured un-moved through the air, and nailed its target. The other went down.

Then there were more blaster shots; he also heard some shouting, and the sound of a grenade or two. He sat there; there weren't any more targets for him. He looked back to find Craig but he had disappeared. Then he realized Slippy had run out into the open blaster ready, unafraid of anybody. Fox sighed and followed, running into aimless plasma fire, shooting at his targets from behind. As he fought beside Slippy, he heard something igniting behind him.

One of the steel, futuristic cruisers, was taking off. Except it hovered lower to the ground, ramp low enough to jump in. then Fox understood. Craig was piloting the cruiser. The vulpine shook Slippy's shoulder, and pointed to the ship. The frog nodded in acknowledgement and ran alongside the red fox. They both jumped in, and ran to the cockpit. It was about the time where they made it to the pilots seat, where Craig was controlling the ship, that Krystal and Falco made it into their new, plasma stained cruiser.

As the boarding ramp closed behind the pair, the ship began to gain altitude. Fox looked out the window of the cruisers bridge. He notice that all of the enemy troops were getting into the other two cruisers. And were going to chase after them. Then he was thrown back. The gleaming ship they had commandeered was now gaining speed and was leaving the atmosphere of Kew.

Craig broke the long silence, "Slippy hit the big red button right there on your left." Slippy hesitated, "Nothing good comes from red buttons. Besides, why the red one?"

Craig turned on the revolving seat, "Because I cant find the green one. Now hit it." Slippy looked at it one more time, and then slammed his hand on the button. Fox could feel himself tense up as the ship made a loud cracking noise. The cruiser launched of a yellow, flair like missile. The missile exploded into a yellow circle of plasma. Then it began to shape, it began to look more and more like a tunnel.

"We have ten seconds until the portal closes. So hold onto something." With that said, he pushed on a lever, and turned the ship into a speeding projectile, aimed for the portal. There was a flash of light, and then darkness, utter darkness. Fox thought that he had died. At first there was a painful bright light, and then nothingness. It was worse than death itself, just sitting there in darkness, where your thoughts mean nothing if you cant think about where you were, because he was in nothing.

Finally, reality returned to him in a fray of color. He didn't recognize where they were. It was an asteroid belt as far as he could tell. The next words that Craig said hurt him, "Welcome to the future, this asteroid belt were floating in is the remains of planet Kew."

* * *

welcome to the future, this chapter is the longest, probably one of the corniest for some scenes, fight scene not very detailed, i rushed towards the end, i just wanted to get it posted

yea, they get to the future, planet kew is blown up, and the story FINALLY catches to its main point HERAY! ...

please R&R


	9. Chapter 9

Chapter 9

"Well that's a tad bit messed up. How the hell do you blow up a planet? Who would blow up a planet?" Falco went on like that for several minutes with no answers. There were a few moments of silence. Craig raised an eyebrow. "Are you finished?"

Fox sighed, he was finally glad that Falco had stopped talking. Then he began to realize that the falcon had asked very good questions. He began t wonder whether he should ask. Everything that had happened with Craig had been very mysterious, but it all came to him when it was necessary to be explained. He thought about whether Slippy, or Krystal would say something. But when it seemed that they wouldn't, Fox spoke.

"He's right though. How did planet Kew become the way it is now?" Fox sat down on one of the chairs. Craig copied his idea and took a chair himself. "Besides, we still have to go to Fichina." This time Krystal spoke. "Why are we going to Fichina?"

Slippy cut in, "Yea it's too cold there. I hate the cold." He was right Fichina was an ice planet, was. Craig chuckled. "Fichina is a lot warmer now." He pushed on a lever, activating its engines.

The nice warm breeze swept through the fields upon fields of grass. There was a clear blue sky, and the sun beat down on the planet like a laser. It humidity made fox begin to sweat, he noticed that he wasn't the only one that was effected by the heat.

"I don't get it, how does an ice planet become a tropical paradise, within, how many years?" Slippy, sat on the ground, taking in a big breath of hot air. Craig stretched out his arms, and dropped on the ground, without even flinching, letting the grass catch him with a thud.

"Yea, its amazing when you forget about all the factories here." He smirked. He was definitely comfortable. "If only it were cleaner, if you go down into one of the northern hemispheres, out by the climate control center. The only reason that's still up is cause with out it, the planet would be a desert wasteland. We don't need another Titania, trust me."

It seemed to make sense, but he wasn't sure about all the factories and why it would be a desert wasteland. He remembered when he was a child, back when his parents were alive, he was just old enough to join the piloting academy. That Corneria was having a problem with their fuel, because all the gases they used, started to make the planet like a greenhouse, trapping all the extra heat in.

Falco was getting stubborn, he liked just sitting there, but he didn't like why, he hated the fact that everyone he once knew, all his friends. The few he had, were all gone now. Although, Steph was dead anyway. He missed her. But how far in the future was he?

"Craig, how far into the future did you take us?" The falcon folded his arms over his chest. Craig didn't answer at first. His eyes were closed, and he looked happy. Really happy. When no answer came Falco got mad. "Damn it Craig! Where, or when are we?"

Craig peeked open one eye and looked at him, "No need to snap, second, we are on Fichina, twenty-two years from when you guys were. Now, its time to go, we gotta find a friend of mine. Krystal, you wont be the only girl, finally right? I saw that look on your face, you don't like being the only female, plus she's just like you!"

Craig got really excited while saying this, the childish expression on his face was clear. Nobody knew what the rapid change in moods was about, but, it seemed almost cute on him.

Craig stopped in the middle of a bowl like field, it was actually very serene. There were bushes and shrubbery all around. He stopped in the middle, and began rubbing the grass with his metallic arm. After a few seconds of doing this, he started knocking on what sounded like a metal surface. It was a trap door. There were a few clicks from locks opening up in the door. The green, camouflaged, door opened up, fake grass glued to the top.

A hound's head popped up. "Craig? Is that you? Well, come on in buddy!"

"Hey Rex, I'm not staying long, if you could just get Kiera. And if you have some, a bowl of oatmeal, I haven't had any in such a long time. Get my friends something to drink and eat too." Rex smiled, "Anything for you, I still owe you so much!" Craig returned a smile, "Ha, you'll catch up, I'll verse you when I get another chance.

Rex smiled as the whole swallowed him up. the group stood there patiently for several moments later. A blue vixen arose from the hidden outpost. She giggled, "Hi Craig." She giggled again. Everyone's jaws dropped, except for Craig's. Kiera was blue, and she had tattoos, just like Krystal's.

What was even worse is what she said next., "Wait I know you guys you're the Star Fox team, you guys are supposed to be dead. What are you doing here?"

"What the fuck! I'm supposed to be dead!" Falco yelled, several creatures moved away, and ran out into the distance as he yelled at the top of his lungs. He wasn't the only mad one. Slippy and Fox were going at it with Craig too. Kiera and Krystal sat there, drinking their tea, and eating bowls of oatmeal. "So, you're Cerinian, just like me?"

Kiera smiled, "I'm actually your daughter, I know that's shocking, and that'll answer some or you're questions.

Krystal nodded, "Well, it's the future, ore so it's supposed to be. Can I ask you a question? Am I alive? Like, am I alive around this time?" Krystal grew nervous.

"How did I die?"

"I was always told you died in child birth, I don't even know who daddy was. But it was almost 19 years ago, I mean, as far as I know, u guys were taken from approximately…28, 29 years ago. A lot can happen. I mean, look at the galaxy now. With Star Fox broken up, the overlord, or so this guy calls himself, ran in diplomatic matters, managed to be elected into the Cornerian government. Gained loyalty over the entire military, and took over the almost the entire galaxy."

"So, Craig brought us here, to fight this overlord?"

"No, Craig brought you here to kill this guy, and to get Star Fox back together, so all the pain and torture that has happened, wont even start, it started because Star Fox wasn't there to protect Lylat, that this guy did it so easily, you guys protected people from harm, then you all disappeared. Leaving the people to anything harmful, which happened to be who ever the overlord is."

"You don't know who?"

"Nobody does. We just let Craig's father lead our rebellion, I know Fox hates Wolf, but he's going to have to get passed his feelings."

* * *

its short, but definetly filled with valuble info, and dont just think that this is just gonna end up another war with the overlord. i have alot more drama, action, and ideas i still havnt expressed yet

please R&R


	10. Chapter 10

Chapter 10

"When was the last time you've ever felt something special about someone?" the voice rang in her head. She was on a building. What seemed to be like thousands of feet up? The voice just got closer and closer. It seemed so near. But there was no one around.

"Last time I've ever loved someone, it caused me to become the thing I swore I'd never become." The Black clad figure stood on the edge. Krystal stood there; she was desperate to get away. The lightning struck in the dark sky and the dark figure disappeared. The lightning struck once again. This time, the figure appeared behind her. "I know who you once loved." It grew dark, as the strike of lightning faded away. Krystal turned around. Heart racing, she desperately looked around, trying to use he sixth sense to find him. It was as if he didn't exist.

As the third flash of lighting dashed across the sky, the black robed man pushed her, sending her flying down the spires of the building, falling parallel to the large tower until she hit the hard, painful concrete. She awoke with anxiety of her terrifying dream. Except, she had this feeling, that something was there, her body hurt, as if she had been struck with something twice her size. She felt like she fell from something high.

Fox sat in a chair or the cockpit. The new ship they had captured, floated through space. The vulpine sat in the chair, legs spread out completely, eyes closed. Krystal walked in. She saw him sitting there.

She walked towards him, quietly, and naturally, soft, blue, elegant feet, sliding across the floor of the ship. Why was he sitting in here? Why wasn't he in a bed? She crept closer, and peeked over his shoulder. At first she was looking down at the controls, and then, she noticed something more. They were pictures. Pictures of the Star Fox team.

She knew that what Kiera said was true now; Craig was trying to get them back together. But what she wondered as, would he succeed?

"So, the princess takes the bate?" Craig stepped out of a corner of a ship. She didn't know how he got there. She could have sworn she hadn't sensed him. But then again, this was Craig; he brought them to the future. There was no telling what he could do. He could know anything he wanted to. And that was his advantage over everything.

"What do you mean?" Krystal didn't look at him. She kept looking at the pictures, the things that brought back all the memories. All the good times that were once there, and now seemed just out of reach. "How do you hide from my powers?"

"Those are some interesting questions, aren't they? The first one is that, someone who knows every single one of your moves is hunting you all guys, he stalks you, and he will eventually find you. And, now I know what you desire the most. Your past. And this is what will slow us down the most."

"How do you know all these things?" she stared deeply at him, trying to break through his concentration, trying to see his mind. But to no prevail.

"You wont be able to read my mind, not yet. You're not strong enough, you're not Kiera. She's the strongest of the few telepaths recorded in history. Even all the Cerinians, she's the strongest."

"That still doesn't answer why I can't read your mind" She rose a fist to him. She knew she couldn't come close to threatening him, but it reassured her. Her pink nightgown didn't add to her threat either.

"I'm to strong, I've trained with Kiera for over ten years, she struggles with getting into my mind, and if she struggles, you wont come close." The wolf stepped over to the fox, and picked up the pictures. And looked at them for some time. Krystal sat there quietly, waiting for an answer. When nothing came. She pouted. She tried, but she wasn't good enough to get under the wolfs mind. She wasn't used to not having and advantage. She angrily walked back out the door and down the hall.

"Did you get all that Fox?" the vulpine smirked, and opened his eyes, "Yea, I know exactly what I need to do now." He sat up, " anyway, what were you talking about when you said, someone was chasing us, and knows all our moves?"

"Its nothing to worry about, at the moment anyway. Nice job blocking her telepathic powers, Kiera." The young blue vixen stepped out from a corner. "Yea, but don't expect me to lie to my mom like that. And before I forget, I struggle getting into your mind? I get in your mind without a problem." She stepped towards the other two.

"Yea," Craig began, "But you haven't been in my mind for almost two years." Keira walked passed him, and rubbed her index and middle finger across his chest. "That's what I want you to think," she winked at him, and shook her lower body seductively as she walked out the door. Fox gave a long, high-pitched whistle, just when she was out of hearing range. Craig slapped him over the head, and scowled him. The wolf walked out to the hallway, and went to sleep, in his long waiting bed.

Fox got up, and began walking. Then he remembered the pictures. He turned and looked at them. They were all the times that they were on vacation. The smiles they had. The first time Krystal stepped onto Corneria, and all the sites that Fox had shown her. In every picture, Fox and Krystal were next to one another/ they always stood close by, and always smiling, not because it was a photo, but because they were truly happy.

He gave a soft smile. And then nothing. His face went expressionless. He shoved the photographs into his pocket. How could she just leave him like that! Why would she! For the first time. He was truly mad. He was so angry he almost broke into tears. Tears of pain. He walked down the halls, stomping his bare feet. He wasn't very loud, but he was definitely angry. There was only silence the rest of that night. That night in dark, empty space.

Planet Katina came into view. The planets miles of green forests spread out over the planet cut off half way by sandy shores and beaches that spun around the planet in random patterns.. The ship dropped its landing gears onto the soft sand. The boarding ramp dropped, pushing itself to the ground. The smooth hiss from the hydraulics sounded off.

Fox was the first one out of the ship, followed by Falco, Slippy, and Kiera. Craig and Krystal followed slowly behind. Craig was eating a bowl of oatmeal. He loved oatmeal. He hadn't had a chance to eat any before, but Kiera, knowing how much he loved it, brought him several crates.

"We ran out of apple and cinnamon, so, we need to pick some more up from Jeremy." Craig took another spoonful of oatmeal to his mouth. "Yea, well, you should eat less oatmeal, besides, how can you eat it, its horrible." Slippy's remark hurt Craig. Craig loved oatmeal, it was his favorite meal, and that comment put him down. Slippy turned his head to his friends for some support, but the all shook their heads, even Fox. Slippy turned around, and there he was.

Craig stood right there, faces apart by barley two centimeters. Craig stared deeply into the frog's eyes, as did the frog into the Craig's. Neither afraid of the other. Craig wasn't afraid because he knew that the frog wouldn't be able to kill him, even with the help of the rest of his x-team. Slippy wasn't afraid of anything anymore. He was ready to die; at least he would see his family.

Keira walked over, and slapped them both in the face. She began walking out into the green forests. She wagged her tail delicately as she took step after step on her small feet. As Krystal followed, it was extremely hard to tell which one was which.

The steel base had many walls in its corroded wall. The outpost was clearly abandoned, and most likely because of all the destroyed structures.

"How did this happen?" Krystal ran a smooth hand over the rusting, and tarnished plates of the wall. She didn't seem too happy. What used to be a beautiful shinning base, no laid, destroyed. It was covered in ashes, the structures were all damaged, missing walls, roves, or just plainly collapsed.

Fox took several steps closer, "Last time we were here, everything was…" he wanted to say fine. He wanted to say that nothing was destroyed, that it couldn't have been better.

Falco was the one who finished Fox's thoughts. "Last time we were here, the place was a wreck. But not this bad, the aparoids only captured the base, they didn't destroy it." Falco didn't have an expression on his face. He never did anymore. There was barely anything he could do anyway. So what was the point? He could just cheer people up, and he wouldn't even if he had the chance. What he knew about the base was something special to Fox, this was where he began his mercenary days.

Craig clapped his metallic hands together. "Yea, but we gotta go inside. And if someone points a gun at you, don't react to harshly. In other words, put your hands up. Its basic protocol."

"So, when you said basic protocol, how does having two dozen, well armed men, taking us hostage, basic protocol?" Falco wasn't to happy about it. The large group of soldiers escorted them to another building. What they all noticed that most of the soldiers were either missing limbs, or had low tech metallic ones. When they were finally escorted across the base, they came to the main building. The large structure's tower was knocked over, but it didn't seem that bad over all. They walked inside, the entire inside of the building was covered in screens and key boards. For a destroyed base, there was a lot of technology. There were computers, glowing buttons. Several dozen monitors.

There was one person, sitting in a chair at a desk. He was short, small, and didn't look too strong. He wore a pair of geek-glasses, and worked by himself at the computer. When he finally noticed someone had walked through the doors, he looked up from what he was doing. "God damn it, why the hell did you have to come back?"

Kiera gave an exaggerated yelp, and ran over the small dog, and gave him a big hug. "Jeremy!"

* * *

yep, thought it went pretty well, Krystal dream seems odly familiar 0-o, and i introduced jeremy. youll find more about him in the next chapter or so.

please R&R


	11. Chapter 11

Chapter 11

"Why did you guys have to come after for me?" Jeremy, the muskrat, pushed his glasses up. He didn't like his friends. He was a loner, which was why he worked by himself in the lab.

"Because," Craig began, "I've brought the Star Fox team, and we need your help." Craig put a hand on Jeremy's shoulder and pointed his thumb over his shoulder to his fellow rebels. Craig gave Jeremy and wry smile, as if trying to persuade him into something, which he was.

Jeremy gave a frown, and looked over his shoulder. "Indeed, but you will simply have to find someone else, I'm too busy." He began walking waving his hand to send them off. Craig's expression didn't change, he expected this from Jeremy.

"Listen Jeremy," this time it was Kiera who spoke, she had stepped up to stand on Craig's side. "You're the only one that can plan out the rest of the operation. We need information that only you can hack the terminals to get, and you know it!" Keira put her hands on her hips; it was her signature sign for being serious. Fox noticed a little bit of Krystal in her, he was positive she was Krystal's daughter. But who was the father?

"Yes I suppose I am good at those kinds of things but I'm not the only one." Jeremy pushed his glasses back into position. "Okay then, who else is there?" Kiera asked. "I mean, if you know someone else, which I know you don't, tell me, who?" she caught him; he knew he was the best, but he tried to make himself look modest.

"I'm not going, you guys are going to get me into positions that can kill me, like usual." Jeremy wheeled across the room on his chair, and pushed several buttons on another computer. "Besides, I have to run this base, I'm the only reason that this base hasn't been attacked, someone has to change the patrol routes from the empires troops."

It was about then that an injured troop came inside the room in haste. "Sir, we're under attack!" he quickly limped back outside to continue shooting. Craig looked at Jeremy, "Keep this place from being attacked huh?" the wolf grinned. Jeremy protested "There wasn't anything in the central systems I hacked earlier. They must have followed you guys! I knew you were nothing but trouble!" Jeremy got up from his seat and ran over to a closet door. He pushed the button to open it and pulled out several machine guns. He slung one over his shoulder. He one to Falco, and the other to Fox. Craig grabbed the one on the muskrats shoulder. "

"Give me that!" Jeremy tried to make a grab for it, but Craig was too fast. He gave the machine gun to Krystal. Fox tried to lend Jeremy his pistol. Craig knocked his hand away, "Never, and I mean NEVER give this guy a weapon." He gave a wry look at the vulpine. Fox only asked, "Why not?" the wolf chuckled, "Ill show you which scars later. But for now," Falco cocked his gun. "We have other matters to attend to. They all ran outside to help; Jeremy went out last, hiding behind Slippy.

The Cornerian soldiers were raiding the base. Plasma blasts flew past them, nearly striking them. The enemy had good aim, and they were trained well. The group all slide behind a lone standing wall from one of the smaller buildings. Fox was on the very corner. He got down on one knee, peeked the gun out from his position and began firing.

Three Enemies noticed the flanking and went into prone position to counter attack. Fox curled back behind the building as the burning plasma ricocheted off his cover.

"Don't bother, they have superior weapons and armor." Craig pulled out one of his knives from his boot. "The only reason we could take the ones on Kew out was because they were light scouts. These guys are heavy assault troopers. You'll need to get closer for the plasma to break the shields. Or something that doesn't involve plasmatic beams, which is why I use knives." He grinned, rolled out past Fox into the open. He brought the blade up over his shoulder and sent it flying with a complete follow-through.

The blade struck one of the enemies between the collarbone and the neck. Craig got up as quickly as possible and dove behind several large, metallic crates. The blood sprayed out of the Cornerian soldiers arm. One of his companions crawled over in hope of helping his friend. The other was delayed from the distraction for several seconds.

Fox took this chance. He ran up to the soldier, sliding the last few feet. The vulpine kicked the man in the masked face in one smooth movement. Fox soon recoiled, jumping to his feet, without any hands. He lifted his whole body off the ground and landed on his feet. Without wasting time he leaned on one knee, pushed the gun into his victims back, and fired at point blank.

Just behind him was the third soldier, his weapon ready to fire. He was about to pull the trigger when he was tackled. Falco rolled on the ground grappling with his opponent.

"Freeze!" one of the enemy troops came up behind Craig, then another behind Fox. With guns pointed at their backs they dropped their weapons, including Craig's belts.

Krystal and everyone else came from behind the building. Twice the amount of soldiers compared to the small group of rebels, each one of Fox's Friends had guns at their backs. Another soldier walked up, except this one was different, he was bigger, and he had red armor instead of the traditional black of the other soldiers.

"What do we got here?" the red soldier took off his helmet; he was a brutally scared husky. He rested the helmet under his arm. "Carven, get over here!" the canine glared his teeth, which were either missing, or rotten.

Another soldier came up behind him. "Yes sergeant, sir?" the smaller, obviously younger soldier stood tall, and saluted.

The sergeant walked over to Fox, and lifted his face up from under the muzzle with his armored hand. "Calm your ass rookie, now tell me, who are these people."

The shorter smaller shoulder, which seemed like a brand new recruit looked at the small group of captives. "They're prisoners, sir."

"And what do we do with prisoners?"

"We, uh... put them on the ship, sir?" the recruit wasn't entirely sure what the answer was, and he was afraid to get on his commanders bad side.

" Right, and do they get any food or water?"

"No sir, no they don't"

"Good, now bind them and put them with the other captives, and make sure they beg for something to eat, I want them to suffer."

* * *

sorry its late, you kno christmas, channukah, w/e but its up, and two of my frends just got out of the hospital, good timing to get surgery...christmas eve haha

it was kinda rushed at the end, hope you dont mind please R&R


	12. Chapter 12

Chapter 12

The ship's prison was rather empty, the group and a several other rebels were caught. The others, either dead, or dieing on the planets surface. Each one of the prisoners were in their own cell, simply because there was so few captives.

Fox was hanging by his arms from metal band hanging from the ceiling by thick chains. The same thing with his feet with the floor. The weakened Vulpine looked up to the cell across from him, Craig hung there motionless. Fox knew he had something up his sleeves he always did. The wolf's head looked up, his bright blue eyes glancing in the dark light. Craig winked, then there was a cloud clank as Craig fell to the floor landing on his bound feet.

Fox shook his eyes, he couldn't see well, due to the lack of light, but he knew what he saw. Craig was escaping! Fox helplessly watch as Craig cut through the metal bands around his shins with the retractable knife he hid in his arm. Fox saw his teeth pearl white teeth gleam as a click came from the cuffs locks.

The wolf walked over to the bares of the door, peeked through checking each end, as best he could, and punched the blade through the lock on his prison. He opened the door and ran across from him to rescue Fox.

It wasn't long until everyone was freed. Falco rubbed his wrists in pain, the bracelets were hard on his feathers, and some of them had fallen out. "Damn." He sighed, it wasn't the first time this happened, but every time they came back, it seemed they only stayed for so long.

Craig was already down the hall, looking out the small window of safety glass. There was no way they would use real glass, especially on a door leading into the ships prison. There were two rebels with them that Keira took the liberty to free as well, making nine of them in total. Fox recognized one of them. She helped lead them to Jeremy when they entered the base. She was pretty decent looking, fox took a quick good look at her and started to mind his own business. He noticed Falco realize her too, and he grew somewhat jealous.

Then he remembered Krystal was there, and forgot all about the other girl. He didn't want to admit it, but he still loved her. But love wasn't what he wanted to call it he hated her, he knew he put her in pain, but what hurt him the most was that she rejected him after he swallowed his pride. Deep down he hated her, but even deeper, there was that un-explainable feeling he always had.

Craig searched over the locks on the door; all twelve of them were on the outside, obviously. Nobody in his or her right mind would leave the lock on the inside of a prison. Craig chuckled. He dealt with worse the locks were pretty standard. He sat on the ground and opened up a small hidden portion on the bottom of his shoe.

Slippy watched his movements in interest. He wanted to watch what skills that Craig had not yet revealed. One of the un-named rebels asked, "How long will it take to get the door open?" he wasn't being impatient, he actually seemed very subtle when he was responded to. "Ten, maybe fifteen minutes at the most. Depends on how careful I am, and whether I take my time. I'm just trying to figure out which pick I need for the locks, they all seem different sizes, and I think one is actually I pad lock, so ill have to do some re-wiring. It wont take too long." Craig went back to working. He seemed fine with what he had to work with.

Jeremy sighed and leaned against the wall next to Craig. Keira went over to Krystal and began having a small conversation with her to pass the time. Slippy watched intently at Craig's working, he wasn't sure why but he was intensely intrigued. Fox went off minding his own business, walked up and down the dark hallway of the jail, he got so bored he started counting the cells, the bars on each prison door, how many steps he took, then just began counting time.

Finally Craig stood up straight turned the door handle, and slowly opened the door. It didn't make a sound, no alarm, nothing. "There we are, the doors open, now if we just go slowly and quietly." He tried to stop him but Jeremy already let out loudly.

"Finally! It feels like forever!" immediately after shouting this he finally realized his mistake, especially when he heard muffled shouting from the floor above them, and the rushing feet coming from down the hall.

"Ass whole!" Keira slapped him on the back off the head, knocking the glasses off his face, and slammed the door closed. Fox quickly ran up behind her and slammed into the door to keep it closed, just in time to prevent their captors from breaking the door open. "It's a good thing the door swings inward! Craig set the locks back in place!"

The wolf stomped on the ground and swung a punch in the air. "It doesn't work like that, besides they already know we're freed, mostly. It wont do much."

Jeremy was scarred, and his next sentence came out stuttering. "You're…you're the rouge on the team…do something!"

"I'm thinking." After several seconds of looking around to see what he had to work with. "Keira, how many troops are outside?"

The blue fox closed her eyes, her face was expressionless has she sank into light thought. It wasn't hard to tell how many there were, but she wanted to see how many more were coming. "Six outside now, two dozen coming down the stairs on the portside of the lower levels, and six coming down the elevator right down the hall."

Fox was concerned, he cursed. "Why so many?"

Jeremy was the next to speak, "Craig and Keira have a reputation to be…" he searched for the right words. "An un-stoppable pair, them and everyone else we still have to find. That is if he needs everyone else."

Krystal looked around; there was a vent in the ceiling of the ship, most lily to bring oxygen to the prisoners but it was bared up. it was completely escape proof. Then she remembered Craig had a blade.

"Craig up there!" she pointed to the vent. She was relieved that there was still a chance to escape. The gray wolf looked up and grinned. He turned to face one of the jail cells. He extracted his knife, and slid one of the bars out of place. He flattened one end, and wedged it into the door. Making it incredibly hard to open.

Fox backed up from the door, resting his sore shoulder; the constant slamming from the outside was hurtful on his arm.

Everyone watched as Craig went to where Krystal pointed at the vent, and began pulling the protecting metal rods off. He bashed open the soon exposed vent.

The two rebels whose names were oblivious to just about everyone went first. Then Slippy, Falco, Krystal, Keira, then Craig. Fox went last. And finally they were out of the prison room and were on their way to freedom.


	13. Chapter 13

Chapter 13

"It smells in here." Falco coughed on floating dust. Everyone was in the venting system, and the ships alarms have been going at it for hours. The only thing that led them was Keira's powers.

"Shush up, they might hear us!" he didn't yell. Slippy was too scarred at the moment; he knew he was well protected between friends. He just didn't want to get caught in between something. Fox was there to protect him anyway. But then he thought about it. If Fox hadn't come along, would his family be alive? Did Fox take away his family, or a reason to keep moving. Either way, he was pissed at the vulpine.

"So Craig, I've noticed you've got plenty of skills. Would you like to explain?" Krystal was very patient at the time; she had used her powers to see where they were in the ship. She wasn't as good as Kiera, but she was able to tell that nobody was around.

"Actually," Kiera began, "Craig is our rogue, his expertise lie between stealth, breaking in such as unlocking doors like you had just witnessed an hour ago, and killing without being noticed." She took a left in the cramped vent. Her knees were covered in dust and dirt, the vents weren't very clean, possibly because the fans weren't on, and more likely weren't on for some time.

"Not to mention," Craig sighed as dirt flew into his face. "I'm a good smuggler, which is why I got the blade, and the other tools I have, retracted in my arms. I lived through my past," he coughed as he continued to follow Kiera crawling in an endless maze of ventilation shafts. "I might as well use it right?"

"Yea…" he sighed. This brought back a haunting memory to Fox. He realized that all the good times he's ever had only leaned into horrible accidents in the future. The future. Why did everything have to be so complicated? As he thought about it. Even with all the great times he had, his life sucked. What even hurt him more was that he knew it too.

The team came to a dead end in the vents. Kiera closed her eyes. There were a few seconds of silence. Then a clanking sound like someone dropped hundreds of coins at once as the blue vixen kicked the vent's filter across the room. It banged against the opposite wall. Everyone crawled out of the vents. Slippy fell on his back while he tried to rearrange himself to get out. The team had managed to find their way into a bathroom.

The restroom was completely empty. There was a large mirror stretching across the counter of one wall. Craig looked around; there were twelve sinks to match with the one dozen bathroom stalls. The walls were shaded in light gray tiles ended in the corner by a closet door.

Once they were sure the room was empty. Fox quietly walked over to the door on the opposite end of the room. When he was approximately five feet from the door. He heard someone talking. The voice was muffled but it was coming his way. His fur stood on ends as the voice came up on the other side of the door.

He quickly turned and waved both his hands. Everyone was intently watching him up to that point, and then everyone ran for a hiding spot. Falco, Jeremy, and the other two soldiers that Fox still couldn't remember the names of, all found a hiding spot in the bathroom stalls. Craig, Slippy, and Kiera all slid under the sinks, twisting their way around the open piping.

This left just Krystal and Fox to find a place to hide. Krystal drastically grabbed Fox's arm and violently pulled him into the closet with her. She closed the door and put her hand over Fox's mouth.

There were buckets, mops, and brooms in the closet, leaving very little room. Fox felt Krystal's warm body up against his as they leaned on each other. He could feel his face going red. She was very close to him now. So close that he could feel her breathing on him.

Then as luck would have it. She looked up at him. Their gentle eyes meeting with one another in the dim light coming through the cracks in the door. The vixen's hand lifelessly slid down from Fox's mouth. It dropped down to his neck, and eventually rested on his shoulder.

She couldn't believe it was happening again. Why did it always have to come out against her? Krystal wanted to take control of her body, to tell her hand to get off him. But, she felt so limp. There was just that one thought that wanted to keep there in that moment. It refused to give in.

Then it happened. Her hand slowly dropped, but not from his body, but down to his chest. She began to lean in hoping for the best. She knew he wanted her to. He always did. But before she did, she used her powers. She searched his mind, just in case. She hadn't read his mind since she ran into him at the bar. But what scarred her was that, it wasn't the same fox she remembered. There was darkness in his mind, an evil.

She leaned back, pulling away from his body. She couldn't do it. Not after what she just noticed was within Fox, she just couldn't she didn't love him anymore.

Just the there was a loud smack, then a sharp Cringe from what was most likely Craig's knife. And thus, the vulpine's moment was ended, and the vixen's emotions stirred even more, as Keira opened the door to the closet. Fox pushed pass her, giving Keira a rough shoulder. Krystal went up to Keira and stopped in front of her.

Kiera, out of the blue, gave her a hug and whispered a few words in Krystal's ears. "I won't tell anyone." Then she let go and walked over to where Falco and Craig had killed the armored personnel.

"That was a nice punch Falco…" Craig quickly searched the body for any weapons or ID. Even maybe for a key card to a door. "Got it." Craig pulled off a key ring with several cards on it. He flipped through them. Several were a key cards for the doors on the ship, and the other was an ID.

Fox got on one knee and pulled the helmet off. "It's a girl." The dog was young, maybe in her early twenties. But it didn't matter now, because she had a giant gap in her throat that reminded him of a pezz dispenser. "Which means we're in the ladies room."

Falco went over to the other corpse and did the same. He searched the body, and removed the helmet. It was the same with her; she was a young dog, just like the first.

Craig's voice went from soft to hard in an instant, "Hide the bodies in the closet, we need to keep moving. And someone mop the blood up." he took the knives, and fire arms from the armor, and passed the weapons around to everyone, except Jeremy.

The halls were filled with guards. Every hallway had a guard in it. It wasn't getting around them with was the problem; it was the fact that they had to kill the person unseen, then hide the body. Fox kept a count of how many soldiers they had taken out.

"That makes seventeen…where should we had this one? " Fox stripped the dead body of his weapons. They had been collecting them so that if the time came, they would be ready with a heavy arsenal with plenty of ammunitions.

Slippy began complaining. "Craig, I can't carry anymore, I think we have enough ammo for now." He was right, with all the ammo the group had, they could easily rain down hell on any army for several hours with machine guns, blaster pistols, plasma grenades, and just about anything else.

"Okay! Okay! Keira, how much farther from the control room?" Craig let several chains of ammo slip of his soldiers to rest. He didn't like carrying weapons like this. In fact he didn't even like to use weapons like the ones he had strapped to his back. He was just glad that each of the guards had two knives per soldier. One in the boot, and one planted on the chest plate of the armor.

Keira closed her eyes for several seconds. "We have to go nine stories, but there's an elevator that we can use as a shortcut. And then the bridge to the ship is just down the hall from there."

"How far is the elevator?"

"Just around the corner actually. And there's nobody down that hall right now."

The elevator bad a bleeping noise every floor it went up. "Okay," Craig got down on one knee and swung the weapons off his shoulder. He loaded the chains into the guns, and passed everything around. "The moment those doors open we are going hot. Fox and Krystal you're Falco's back up. Falco your going to cover me and… oh god I forgot your names…"

"I'm Steve and this is Jenny."

"Okay, you're going to cover me, Steve and Jenny. Slippy, you're going to come out after Jeremy and Keira. Make sure Jeremy can get to the control room; he has to disable the communications and make sure they didn't set off a distress signal. Got it?"

Everyone nodded.

* * *

Hey, sorry bout the last chapter i was in a major rush to get it done, and it gets...aggrivating every once and a while. again im also sorry for this chapter too, it was also rushed, im just trying to get farther into the plot so everyone knows how it turns out because its supposed to be a big shocker

with Fox's changing, just to let those of you know is that is why its called "Know thy self" because the main part of this is to be carful of how the characters have changed from 64 up to now.

please R&R


	14. Chapter 14

Chapter 14

The elevator door, slid open with a small, high-pitched beep. The plan was executed just as Craig had wanted it to. There were two guards patrolling the hallway they were going down. They never even had the chance to shout before they were shot. A sizzle sound came from the bodies burning flesh as Fox stepped over one. The smell of singed meat filled his lungs.

They came to the end. On the other side of the door was the only chance they had to get off the ship. They had to stop the pilots. Everyone got in line against the wall in formation.

Fox stepped out of line and got down on one knee, the hilt of his weapon resting on his shoulder ready for anything. Craig stepped off from the wall, and prepared the key. He didn't know how many there were and he didn't care. He just needed Jeremy to hack the systems.

Craig slid the key card in and the door opened. There were stationed engineers sitting at various desks, but none turned around, they had no idea something was wrong. Then Fox began shooting. One, then two, four, six. He cleared out most of the room. Now the ship was on full alert. The engineers faced their pistols at him, and the soldiers began blasting him with their rifles.

Fox rolled off to the side and took cover behind a control panel. The rest of the rebels flowed through the door and dropped behind some control panels. Jeremy and Slippy had moved to where Fox was hiding.

"Fox, you have to try and avoid hitting the equipment, it could prove valuable." Slippy, popped his head up and shot a few rounds from one of the blasters they had confiscated.

Just then there was a small clinking as a small metallic sphere bounced off a wall and landed at their feet. It was a grenade. Fox stumbled as he tried to reach for it. He was lucky; it was just close enough for him to roll it closer with the tips of his fingers. He quickly threw it over his shoulder, not caring where it landed, just making sure it didn't blow up on him. Fox heard one tap over the random blaster fire before what seemed to be more of a pop then an explosion.

Fox turned over to see the others. He watched several of them take shots from the blasters. Then tragedy struck. One of the enemy soldiers turned the corner opposite from Fox. the soldier didn't hesitate, he unloaded blast after blast of machine gun fire. Then out of nowhere the same happened to him, Jeremy, and Slippy. He was shot in the back several times before finally passing out. The last thing he saw as he crashed to the ground was Krystal pulling the pin of a grenade, and chucking it towards her target.

There was nothing. It was all nothingness. Was he dead? Fox couldn't tell, where were his friends. They had vanished. Had they vanished? Or did he leave them. What kind of friend leaves when he's needed? It wasn't his fault, he was gone. Gone from the world, and from the people he cared for the most. In his state of mind time didn't exist. He couldn't tell if he was there for minutes, hours, years, but he was there. where ever "there" was. But he felt something, something in the darkness. It felt as if he was falling. Then light.

His eyes adjusted he made out images. He wasn't sure where he was. But it wasn't pretty. Then everything made sense. Craig was pulling him up by the elbow. "Get up! We're leaving!" Craig pulled Fox's arm over his his shoulders and put him in a fireman's carry.

Everything was dizzying to Fox. All he could make out was the blurs of people on the ground. He tried to look around. He tried to count how many blobs of color were on the ground. Two, three…five. Five of the people he had just fought along side with. The he passed out.

He woke up again, Craig was handing him off to someone. Someone with blue fur. Kiera? Krystal? He couldn't tell, he couldn't even think about it at first, the pain was too distracting. Once again, blackness. The very last thing he heard was someone crying, and another shouting out. Then there was a sliding of metal combined with the hiss of escaping gas. And the world seemed weightless.

2 Years Later

Titania

"You there Fox? What did you find?" Krystal voice broke out over the vulpine's headset. Fox completely ignored her. He was looking at the scraps of metal he held in his hand. It was a broken knife blade. In fact, it was one of the two special ones that Craig carried on his sides. The ones that looked like they could be connected to form a larger blade. Craig knew something, which is why he had to find him.

"Fox?!"

"Yea, I hear you."

Kiera made a scuffling noise, probably getting up from her seat, or looking through papers. "What did you find?"

Fox stood up straight and toyed around with the dulled scraps of metal that used to be his companions knife. "One of his knives, which means he was here, and I see no body, so he was on the move."

"That's good news, we haven't had a lead in almost two months."

"There's something wrong though, the knife is broken. If he was alive why would he leave his knife here? Why is it broken?"

He pulled out his binoculars. He didn't know what it was called. It was something that started with V, it was a newer model. Whatever he was looking for he didn't find it, plus he didn't know what to look for.

He sat down on what he expected to be soft sand. But it was hard. And he hurt himself. He stood back up and rubbed his rear. He looked down to see what he sat on. Underneath him was a stone. Which was slightly exposed where he sat down.

He looked at it, and then it hit him. Why he left the knife, why it was broken. Fox got down on his knees and began to swipe the sand off the rock. Why he left the knife, why it was broken. There it was. The name Katina scratched into the stone.

That's where he had to go. Fox had to go to Katina. "Kiera, I'm going to Katina."

"Isn't that where Kry-." Kiera was interrupted.

"Yea, it is."

* * *

sorry about being late, and not updating. i feel rele bad about using it as an excuse but...midterms, real pain.

Um, yep two years later, all will be revealed! i was deperate to finish it, so please be gentle, i know i probably have alot of things that dont make sense yet, but they will, and if its a grammatical or spelling error, sorry. please R&R


	15. Chapter 15

Chapter 15

The door slid open as fox walked in. Kiera was sitting at her desk typing at a computer, talking to someone over her headset. "Yea, well it's going to cost a lot more then five thousand for something like that. Besides, we have bigger contracts to be working on."

Fox walked up behind her and put his hand on the backrest of the chair and leaned in to see what was on the computer. All it was were copies of contracts and payments, nothing out of the ordinary. He was once again a mercenary, a lone acting mercenary, with Kiera as his operator. He didn't care so much about being a mercenary; he just wanted to find Craig. If he found Craig, he found what Craig knew before the accident.

Kiera was still talking over the headset. "Okay, yea I think that can be managed…mhmm…okay, you've got a deal, just send a copy of the contract and ill see what we can do."

She began typing on the computer. "So you found Craig's knife? What's up with that?"

"My guess is that he carved where I could find him, or at least get closer to him in a rock after him and everyone escaped the ship, which he broke the knife while doing so. Then, like we saw, a cleanup crew came in to pickup the scraps from the escape pods we managed to get in. So that's where he crashed. So he left a clue where nobody would find it unless they looked for it."

Kiera put her index finger and thumb on her chin and rubbed her muzzle. "There's one problem with that. First what happened to everyone else, surly Craig wouldn't have let them die if he was alive to do something, which means wherever Craig is, so is Slippy, and Falco."

The computer made a beeping noise. A window popped open on the monitor revealing the contract that Kiera was recently in a conversation about. Fox read it. It was an interrogation mission. Someone wanted information about something. Fox had to go and find out. There was a picture of an all to familiar face on the e-mail. The sergeant that had captured them two years back, and was the reason his friends were split up.

"Yea, tell them ill take the mission." Fox went back and grabbed an assault riffle from the closet from across the room and strapped it to his back.

Kiera shook her head. "Its not a very good pay, and I know who the guy is and all, but I don't think revenge is going to help."

"I'm not going for revenge. If he was in control of the ship, that means he knows what happened when all the shit happened two years ago. Which means, he can give me a hint on where Craig and everyone escaped." And before Kiera could interject, he was already out the door.

Fox hit the button to lower the landing ramp. He stepped out of his small gunship. The surface of Katina was as it was last he was there. The one difference was that the walls to the fort were actually repaired. The base shined brightly, forcing the vulpine to squint.

As his eyes adjusted, the large gates of the base opened up in front of him. An honor guard went out to greet him. The five highly decorated officers lined up and gave him a quick salute. Fox completely ignored them and continued to head for the base, his assault rifle strapped to his back.

"Yes, I'm looking for a young girl by the name of Krystal." Fox stared at the officer. The trooper was rather scarred. It wasn't that Fox had any rank at all. He was a mercenary. What scarred him the most was that he was a rather deadly one.

The officer stuttered the next words into his walkie-talkie. "Krystal, you eh…have a visitor." A few moments passed before Krystal, dressed in green camouflage appeared from around a corner of one of the buildings.

"So you came back after all huh?" she didn't seem to thrilled to see him.

"What kind of hello is that?" Fox pulled his arm across his torso and bowed, more to mock her then respect. In fact, it was all to make fun of her.

Several minutes passed. They had decided to take a stroll on the walls of the fort. Krystal said that's where her mind was at rest now a day.

"I'm not going to lie to you, but I really don't see why you're here." Fox didn't have an expression on his face. It was as if after all this time he had wiped his life away from emotions.

Krystal knew he was going to try something like that. "I'm here because this is where I belong."

"No, why are you here as a soldier?"

"Because I'm tired of all those goose chases you've put me through."

Fox didn't say anything at first then, he took a deep breath as if to calm him down. "Finding Falco and Slippy is a goose chase to you is it?"

Krystal clenched her hands into fists until the turned white under her blue fur. "Face it Fox, you're not looking for those to, you're looking for Craig."

Fox had a saddened expression. She had managed to actually get inside him. Which wasn't hard considering she could see and feel what he was thinking.

"I'm looking for Craig because I think he can tell me where Falco and Slippy are." At first he thought he had made a good point but deep down he knew it wasn't true. Sure it would be great to find them, but he needed to find Craig because there was something he was hiding. Something he knew. He didn't know why he thought this. But Craig always seemed to know the answer to all the problems they faced, which means he knew a lot more then what was first implied.

Krystal searched his mind. She had found that Fox was looking for Craig because he thought the wolf knew something, but she said nothing. She also believed Craig knew a lot.

"Fox, you should have this." She handed him a small disk case. Krystal crossed her arms, and wrapped her bushy blue tail around her slender body. She began to cry, whatever she had handed him, and it had a major impact on Krystal. "Besides you have a contract to do anyway." She began to walk away, and Fox did nothing but watch, as the love of his life grew more and more distant.

Fox let his body fall down as he sagged into the seat. He wasn't normally. He tossed the small box Krystal had given to him. He decided he wanted to see what was on the disk. It had to be something important. If it wasn't why would the vixen have given it to him. Fox pulled the CD out with his two fingers and let it slide into an opening on his gun ship's computer. On his computer screen a small window opened up.

The fox's eyes rolled across the screen as he watched the loading bar slide swiftly across the monitor. It was a video log. At first most of it was mostly flying red and blue going across the screen until the camera cleared up. It was in a small cylinder like alcove. He watched as plasma zoomed past, then two figures appeared on the monitor. He recognized them instantly. How wouldn't he if it was him. Then it was clear to him, this was a camera view from inside the escape pod back on that fateful day.

The orange fox sat on the edge of his seat, watching it intently. He watched as several characters moved in. Krystal was the first to go into the escape pod. Then Craig came into view carrying Fox. The wolf slowly and gently handed Fox's limp body to the blue fox. Fox swallowed hard. Was that really him?

The vulpine watched as Krystal and was handed Kiera next. Then the unthinkable. Craig backed out and pushed a button on the outside of the escape pod. And the door closed. He watched as the blue vixen he once loved tried to stop him. The video was silent but he remembered what Krystal screamed, and it rang in his head, over and over, an endless wave thought.

He now knew what nobody would tell him. He didn't need to watch the rest. He ejected the disk and slid it back into the case. Fox felt a tear begin to slip down his face. He started the engines to his gunship, and blasted off to Corneria. That's where he was supposed to be. But he wasn't going as a hired gun. He was going to gun down one the man who ruined his friendship two years ago. He was going to find the sergeant, and he was going to get answers.

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Ive noticed that, my story is hard to follow. now i wanted the story to make people think about clues and foreshadowing, but maybe its giving the wrong impression. So to recap this chapter to make sure people are following. Fox and Kiera became bounty hunters in hope of find Craig, Falco, and Slippy. Fox stopped by to see Krystal who wound up joining the rebellion because she grew tired of Fox's "goose chases"

Idk bout this chapter, i guess its okay please R&R


	16. Chapter 16

Chapter 16

"I don't see him." Fox adjusted the scope lenses. He was really more just playing around with it then actually trying to get it in focus. "Roger that Fox." Kiera's voice sounded out over the speaker in the headset. "There should be a small bridge connecting the buildings your on. You could probably sort your way through the offices in the building you're standing on. Try sneaking in through the ventilation shafts."

Fox hated vents. Hated them. For some reason vents was a mercenary's best friend. It was always the answer to escape, hide, or travel through un-noticed. Vents were dusty, and they always smelt bad. But that's not why he hated them. He hated them because he was always crawling through them, and he hated it.

The vents weren't actually so bad. They were fairly clean. For vents that is. There was still a little bit of dust, but it wasn't so bad. The thing that annoyed fox was the random placement of fans. The fans blocked a lot of paths and made hi wander around for longed then he should have. Then finally, he found a good spot to make his exit. The fox kicked the vent covering off. It flew across the room and made a small clank as it spurred to the floor.

Fox Climbed out and looked to see where he was. He was in a small utility closet. There were brooms, mops, and cleaning supplies all around on shelves.

He quickly put his back to the door. And twisted the handle holding his blaster in the other. The door slid opened up just a little. He peeked through it. There was nobody there. Although, he did see a security camera facing down the other hallway.

Fox opened the door a bit more and looked down behind him. Nothing. He opened the door all the way and closed it behind him. He put the stock of the blaster up to his shoulder. He slowly made his way down the hall. Kiera came over the headset.

"I've found the schematics of the building. If you go up a few floors, there's a bridge connecting the two buildings, just above you. You're going to have to cut your way through office section C. I'm downloading the map to your communicator as we speak."

Fox heard a small beeping sound as Kiera finished uploading the map to the communicator around his wrist. A small device popped off of it. It was a small flat square, with a small lens like item on top. The device floated over a few feet in front of him, and projected an orange hologram. The hologram was a 3D image of the two buildings he was working his way through.

The orange fox dropped down to one knee and observed the holographic map. The quickest route for him to take was bleeping in and out between white and orange. It was so bad just two hallways, and it was Saturday, so not too many people should be in the building, if there were he would take them out. He didn't care if they were civilians. He would get away, he always did.

The old Fox of course, would never do something like that. But then again it wasn't him. There was something wrong with him. It was a gradual approach at first and nobody expected it, except maybe Krystal her and her powers. But Kiera was a telepath too, a stronger one at that. Did she see it coming? She had to have. But, why not say something.

Fox cleared the voices in his head. And before he even realized it, he was already walking down the hallway, thoughts swirling unsteadily in his mind. The old Fox Mcloud. If that was the old one, was he the new one? No he was just the same, shaped by his life. Like every other person, but then again, what kind of person the future, watches his friends lose everything they had, gets dragged into the future by some mysterious figure who seems to be friendly but keeps so many secrets. In the end, the vulpine decided to just go with it.

Once again Fox walked out of his little trance, he was climbing a flight of stairs. Which he assumed was probably where some of the more important offices were. He didn't like how his mind was working all of a sudden. But then again, it's happened before. All he knew was that it was one hell of a way to pass time.

Then he drifted into more senseless thoughts. How this all happened, everything just got taken from him. Even before Craig. He remembered the countless, pitiful, arguments he had with Falco. Those odd inventions of Slippy's design. Then he remembered Krystal, all those embarrassing moments she snuck into his mind. He kind of liked it. He thought it was cute. After a while, first he thought it unfair, but as time passed, her powers kind of grew on him.

When his thoughts cleared up more, he was just in the middle of the office complex, maneuvering through the sections. He tried to remember the map the best he could. If he was right there should be a door just at the end of the offices, leading into a fire exit, which he could use to get up to the next two floors, into the connecting bridge to get to the other building.

Just then, as he reached for the door a shadowy figure moved up from behind the fogged window. Someone was coming in. Fox's hair stood on end as he quickly hid in one of the office boxes just down the all from the door. He made it just in time. The door opened, an old Fox walked in. or was it a hound? Fox couldn't tell because he was forced to peer through little cracks in the corners of the office he was hiding in.

The person that had nearly exposed Fox was dressed in a brown uniform, and carried a broom in one of his hands. A janitor, a civilian. Fox calmed down, and got ready to jump him as soon as the janitor got close enough.

"I suggest you come out." The man said. "I know you're over there. C'mon, if you're going to break into the place, might as well hurt a few people, make a scene. Or are you a thief, coming to stash up and get out?"

Fox was startled he wasn't expecting it.

The man dressed in brown spoke up again. "Well? What's taking you so long? You know I can hear you right? Right over in office…" he trailed off a bit, as if guessing. "Office, 34-C." his voice was shaking, he sounded pretty old. Very old.

Fox looked around; there was a little golden plate next to the computer, which was labeled 36-C. the orange fox, gave away his position. He stepped out of the office and stood in the ally-way. "Close, 36-C, not 34."

"My hearing wasn't what it used to be." It was a hound. His gray fur covered most of his face but for two dark eyes that went on forever. Fox went in for a quick punch. He figured one good punch would take out the old man. He was wrong. Somehow the old hound managed to deflect his attack just past the side of his head, and pushed Fox away.

The orange fox was astonished. How could that happen. The fox tried again, except with several more punches. And again after again, the old, gravely hound deflected each one past his head with his forearms. Then Fox swung one final punch. But instead of the hound knocking it off to the side. He caught Fox by the wrist, spun him around, and locked the vulpine arm behind his back, slowly pulling it up to gradually increase pain. "I spent 15 years in the military, fought in both the Lylat wars, and the Aparoid invasion, I even flew alongside one of the best pilot you could think of, fighting alongside in the Angler War, now get out of here before you get hurt anymore, I have to clean the offices."

Just as he finished he picked up the broom he had left leaning on the wall. And began sweeping. But before he could begin brushing the flore, Fox kicked him in the stomach and elbowed him in the back of the neck. Hard. Knocking the hound out cold.

Kiera came onto the com-link. "Hey you alright?"

Fox bent over and rolled the limp body over, so it faced upwards. "Yea."

"Who was that guy?"

Fox read the nametag of the man he just fought. In fancy letters, a single name was written, Bill.

"Nobody I know." But Fox lied, he knew who it was, or who it might be. Fought in the Lylat wars? The Aparoid war? The Angler war? Yea, it could very well be him, who knew. Then again he wondered. If it was his old pal from the academy, why was he a janitor now? All Fox could tell as he walked out the office door and down the hall, was that the future was a messed up place.

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Yep, its going well, sorry i havnt updated in a while, its been, a bit slow on my end i guess. to recap, Fox finds where his target is, and as hes making his way through the building is mind starts to break down and his thoughts begin to change. the he meets the old hound, which he believes is one of his old friends from the Academy he was trained in back in his own time-zone.

i hope you enjoy please R&R


	17. Chapter 17

Chapter 17

Krystal looked out here window. She watched as the very tip of the sun was coming up above the hillside at the edge of the dense forest. 5:52. Eight more minutes until the day started. Like every other day she would get up, get dressed, make her bed and line up outside awaiting her orders. This was the military, the rebel's military.

The problem was that it wasn't the same as before, it's been different for the past three days. Three days of thinking. When Fox showed up out of the blue. Why did he come back? She knew it wasn't because he just wanted to find Craig. This would be the day where her life would take, yet another turning point. She got dressed. She was tired from the lack of sleep but she was determined. She was going to leave. By 5:53 she was out the door barley making a sound.

There was little light to see around the base. The occasional guard passed by, but didn't bother Krystal. Even though she was fairly new around the outpost she was well famous for being one of the nicer, prettier girls in the base.

She heard the few bugs buzzing around some of the spotlights but other than that they left her alone. She felt the base needed more lights, sure there were several covering the exits but there were still plenty of shadowy corners. And there it was the back gate. The troops watching the gate were up on the wall, talking. It didn't seem that they were paying much attention.

The problem was, how would she get out. There was no way to sneak out unless she jumped of the top of the wall. But twenty feet could easily shatter her legs, even if she rolled. But then surly someone would see and with broken legs how would she escape. Perhaps bribery, or, she thought. Maybe the soldiers would like a little feminine persuasion.

Krystal flipped the soldier over her shoulder and listened to the body as it made a thud. This wasn't quite the feminine persuasion she had hopped for. What hurt the idea the most was that the two men guarding the gate happened to be women. Talk about bad luck. There was another set of soldiers running down the wall getting ready to shoot.

The blue vixen couldn't hesitate. She grabbed a pistol, rifle, and a belt of clips from the two women she had just knocked out. She slung the rifle over her back by the strap. She did the same with the belt of ammo as she slid the blaster pistol in her pocket of the camouflage of her cargo pants. Surprisingly the alarms hadn't gone off yet. Then again, it has only been a minute or so before anyone knew what had happened.

How was she going to get away? She certainly would jump off the wall in risk of hurting herself. What would Fox do? He knows how to fix everything. Time was of the essence. She didn't have much time to think. She roared through her mind, then the two soldiers, anyone who could anticipate a way out. Then she found one. It was familiar but she had no idea whose it was, but didn't care.

But what was odd was that it seemed like the thoughts came to her rather then her finding them. But it didn't matter. She figured it would be something to worry about later all she wanted to do was getting out. And fast.

She began to run. She ran straight for the two men that had already taken their knees and began firing. The alarms went off at the sound of the blasters being shot. Krystal strafed back and forth while running. She didn't purposely doge the plasma flying past her. She was just trying to make herself a harder target to hit. The vixen came close enough to the soldiers where they were just out of touch when she jumped. She lunged right over the crouching soldier causing some confusion to the pair of armed rebels.

Krystal ran just a little more until there was a turn on the fortress wall. But instead of turning. She jumped. Krystal pushed off the metallic structure with her foot as hard as possible and thrusted her arms outwards as if to catch something. A quiet thud alerted some small sleeping birds in the tree she had grabbed.

The branch about five feet under the edge of the wall, just out of view, bounced up and down as Krystal relaxed her tightened muscles. She slowly shimmied down the branch and climbed her way down the trunk.

The blue fox heard something. Some footsteps rushing towards her. She hid in a small shrubbery and waited. She looked up. Two figures stood on the end of the wall.

"God damn it! I want a team out there in twenty minutes. Find her!"

"Yes sir."

The two men walked beck down the wall, boots clattering against steel. Krystal climbed out of the bushes and started walking into the woods. She slipped the rifle that had surprisingly stayed on her back. Along with the ammo and the pistol was still in her pocket. And for the first time since she stopped letting Fox pull her in to finding Craig, she was free. She felt like she was just let out of a cage.

The dense forest scrapped at Krystal's knees. The long cargo pants had several cuts in them, and weren't providing much protection. She had been walking all day. The entire time of walking she had been avoiding leaving footprints in the ground. She knew she was being hunted, so she had to be light on her feet. But she had to run fast to avoid getting caught up to.

She stopped to take a break. She sat on a tree trunk that was knocked over and beginning to decay. The blue vixen plopped her weapons onto the ground next to her and tapped into her mind. She searched around, looking for anyone or anything that could be following her.

There was. Seven figures were slowly making their approach. About a mile away, and gaining. Krystal didn't have time to rest; she had to be on the move. The blue fox grabbed her arsenal and took off. No longer caring about the marks she was making with her feet. All she cared for was creating distance between her and her pursuers.

An hour or so went by. The blue vixen had taken another seat, but on a rock this time. Krystal's feet had blisters on top of her calluses. She tried wiggling her toes, push the pain out the best she could but nothing worked. Once again she tapped into her senses to see if there was anyone behind her. And as she suspected there was. The same group. The good news was that they were farther behind then before, nearly double the distance.

She took the chance to rest. She slid her boots off her feet as gently as possible yet she still managed to pop a few blisters. Her feet hurt. There was no possible way she was going to get any further that day. Her feet and lower body hurt like hell, the sun was going down, and she was beyond tired. Her only hope was to hide for the night, and hope the search parties went past her. She looked around.

There was a low hanging pine tree just a few feet off to her left. Krystal put the pistol in her pocket, and tied the belt of clips and grenades over her back. She picked up her rifle and placed the hilt under her arm, in her armpit. She stood up, using the blaster as a crutch, and limped over to the tree. She flung the rifle over her back and heard the clanking sound of the frame from the blaster hit against the ammo on the belt and began to pull herself up. She relied mostly on the strength in her arms to pull her self up. Those push ups she did in boot camp really were for something after all.

She climbed higher and higher until she was about fifteen feet up. When she was satisfied with the height, she circled around the tree finding a good area to make a bed of some sort. The fox found two branches lying parallel from each other. She began to break some branches to make a pallet to sleep on in between the branches and sticks that she had gathered and closed her eyes, wondering what she was going to do next.

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Yep, shes running away. i couldn't think of any other way to get Krystals side of the story going the weay i wanted, but this works out with my plans rather well. so Krystal deserts her outpost and is now wanted by the rebellion army. aw well

please read, and reviews would be awsome ;D


	18. Chapter 18

Chapter 18

Fox watched his target walk back and forth. The man was talking on the phone and clearly in a bad mood.

"Fox, I know he's in your cross heirs, I mean, you have a clear shot, no wind, and your only three fourth's of a mile away. Just take the shot, verify a kill and we can take another vacation." Kiera's voice was beginning to aggravate him. She obviously knew why he wouldn't shoot him. She was the strongest psychic in all know history she was probably reading his mind right now.

"I'm moving in closer, I'm going to take him out in close quarters, practicing radio silence." With that said the vulpine switched off his communicator headset before Kiera could say anything. She was aggravating him, now he was going to aggravate her. Simply by turning off his communicator.

He flipped the rifle over his shoulder. As he listened to the slight rustling of the plastic frame of the gun rub against his vest. And he began to thing. This futuristic blaster worked very well. A simple assault rifle could shoot a plasma blast in a straight line over at a target over a mile away. This futuristic technology bothered him though.

He missed his time, when a short ranged weapon was used for short range as long ranged weapons were used for farther targets. But in the future, a short-range weapon usually shot nearly a mile without curving over a few centimeters. But assault rifles like his was like a sniper rifle from his time. So many things to get used to, especially in his career.

Fox ran up, grabbed the security guard from behind. Fox put his hand around his mouth and pulled tight, so that any screams or shouts were turned into muffled cries of pain as Fox snapped the mans neck in a painful yet quickening death. Just down the hall and the sergeant was all his. Just then the alarm went off.

"Damn it, how the hell did they find me?" he looked around angrily looking for the source of his give-away. He spotted a camera down the hall he was going for. "Fuck!" he cursed as his target ran out of his room. "Stop him!" he shouted and pointed at the vulpine. Two security guards came around the corner, took a knee and began shooting.

"If an un-identified figure carrying guns in one of the governments office buildings, the security guards wont hesitate to shoot you." Bill was hiding behind the corner where Fox had just come from. He had a stern look and he continued to gaze at Fox.

Fox didn't know what to do. Was this the actual Bill he knew? It sounded like him. "I suggest you take cover." Just then he pulled Fox behind the corner with him, and puller out a pistol from a hilt that was hidden under his janitors uniform shirt.

Fox wasn't sure whether Bill knew it was him or not so he assumed Bill didn't know and if Bill did, well he wasn't complaining he could use the help. "Why are you helping me?" Fox tried to stay as calm as possible.

"Your friend asked me to." Bill took a few shots from his blaster pistol around the corner, nearly hitting one of the security guards.

"What friend? I didn't bring backup."

"Some wolf character, looked just like O'Donnell from our flying days."

Fox froze. It certainly wasn't O'Donnell. It sounded like someone else he knew though, the guy he had been looking for over the years.

"What was his name?"

Bill hesitated as if trying to remember. "Um…I believe he called himself Craig, said he knew you, said he knew you would need help. When he said this I mean, first you're supposed to be dead you bastard! Second, I didn't believe him because you're supposed to be dead, then I saw you in the office, like Craig said I would find you. I had to make sure it was you, so I tested your skills."

"And I passed…God damn it! Where is he?"

"He left a few minutes before I ran into you at the office."

"God damn it! He always gets away! God Damn it!" Fox wasn't mad. He was pissed. His rush of anger drove him to dive out into the hallway of blaster fire. He dropped into prone position, and fired an entire clip at what was now four security guards.

One by one, blast after blast; the guards were eventually taken out. With the silence of blasters, the sound of engines was heard just a floor above him. Engines of a drop ship. The sergeant was trying to escape. He wouldn't let that happen. As he began to get off the ground. Plasma shot passed him. He quickly spun around, down the other side of the hall, more guards were shooting at him.

"Fox go, ill cover you!" Bill got up on the other wall and began shooting at the guards, buying him time.

* * *

Heray Bill saves the day! and whats this about Craig that just happened?! all shall be answered, anyway Fox finds out that Craig was nearby, but not sure where he is now, could still be on the planet.

Sorry for its shortness, i was eager to get it up, hope you enjoy, reviews are awsome :D


	19. Chapter 19

Chapter 19

Fox switched on his communicator as he hurriedly ran up the steps. He skipped every other step jumping the last three up. He had to hurry. The winding staircases made him slightly disoriented. Back and forth, back and forth. But he was determined. If Craig was anywhere in the building, maybe the man he was chasing had something to do with it.

"This is Fox," the vulpine spoke into the microphone on the headset. "I'm pursuing my target to the roof."

"God damn it Fox, I hate it when you cut me off like that!" Kiera was mad. She was just like her mother. Willing but short tempered.

"Kiera I have no time. Craig was in the building before me, I need you to track him down, I don't care how you do it. Just do it!"

"That's what I've been trying to tell you! I saw him on the virtual schematics. He was tailing you ever since you cut my radio off!"

Fox paused. There was no way he had been followed. He checked behind him every time he had reached the other end of the hallway to make sure nobody had caught him. There was no way. Then it hit him.

"Kiera! Where is he now?" He continued running. He was nearing the top.

"Give me a second, I'll find him."

Fox was right at the exit. He could hear the engines of the drop ship preparing to take off. There was no way he was going to let the sergeant get away. Three steps…two…one.

Fox was punched in the face square in the jaw just as he went through the doorway. He fell to the ground. His vision was slightly blurred but he recovered. Then he was picked up. He kicked and wailed, trying to break out of his attackers grips. Fox failed and was thrown across the roof of the building, just as the drop ship he heard was beginning to land. He had no idea who his attacker was until he was standing ready for the next blow as the sergeant walked towards him and stopped a few yards away, holding a metal pipe.

"Fox! Fox can you hear me?!" Kiera's faint voice sounded over the headset that had fallen out of place and was now dangling by his chin. He quickly checked for his weapon. Unfortunately for him, it had slipped off his back and was now off to his side, farther than he was from the sergeant. He checked his pistol. Which was slightly bent, cracked in multiple places, and had red plasma oozing out from a crack in the main combustion chamber where the plasma bolt is extracted and reshaped into a spherical projectile.

He checked for grenades, he remembered having three left from when he started, but they were all gone. He looked around; maybe there were might be one near him, anything to give him the upper hand. Then he realized. In the other hand of his attacker was a belt, a belt of grenades. He must've ripped it off of him when he was being thrown.

Fox tossed his worthless pistol away and considered going for his rifle. He might be able to fight the sergeant hand to hand, but that pipe, maybe if he could get a hold of it, he might be able to use it to his advantage. Fox checked the area around him, making sure he knew where the ledge was. Right behind him. He was merely a foot or so from tripping over the edge of the building, all forty stories. He wasn't in a good position.

"Fox!" the vulpine slowly brought the headset back to its rightful place, not letting his eyes leave the man who was ready to knock him off the edge with a quick dash and a shove.

"Yea, I'm fine." He clicked the headset off. He couldn't afford any distractions. He closed his eyes and listened to the engines of the drop ship, the wind flying past him. He tried to calm himself. The last thing he needed in a situation this close from falling to his death was to be nervous, to be afraid.

But he was Fox, Fox McCloud, he was never afraid. The tireless hero everyone on Corneria used to say. He wished it were true. The fact was that he was nervous, he was scared, and he was in danger.

Once he was calm, he opened his eyes, ready to take on anything. He took a few steps; hopefully not only to get away from the edge, but also show the sergeant he wasn't afraid. The sergeant grinned, awaiting for anything.

Fox stood in a basic defensive stance. Putting his left leg out front, and extending his left arm forward. And balanced his body as if ready to take on the impact of a tackle.

The sergeant grinned. The man felt confident. And in his confidence, he foolishly dropped the belt of grenades, which he could have easily used to kill Fox. But he was confident and decided to charge.

Fox didn't have much time, but he played his cards right. At the last second he squatted, grabbed the metal pole, and rolled backwards. His motions sent his attacker in a flurry to try not to fall off the edge. The sergeant was left dangling over the edge from the shoulders down.

Fox walked over. And stood at the edge of the building, boots making a small thudding sound as the drop ship took off, for some reason leaving the sergeant behind. He stood there, slightly placing his boot on the canine's hands.

"Two years ago, you were in charge of a battle platoon that had attacked a rebel base. You took nine captives. Three of them got away on the only escape pod dispatched from the ship over Titania at 22:17 military times."

He slightly pushed his boot down on his victims hand even harder. "What happened to the other six?

The sergeant was quick to answer, as if hoping to lie. "I don't know what you're talking about!" It was a lie. Fox stepped even harder on his hand. He watched as the hopeless dog whimpered as he tried to find a foot hold on the smooth surface of the building.

"You know what I mean, one of them lived, where is he?" This time Fox was mad. His eyes were red, his knuckles turning white under his orange glowing fur. It seemed as if killing this man was the angers only escape.

"No, that's impossible, we killed every last one of them! They're all dead! And I killed them all!" That was less likely then not a good answer. Actually it was without a doubt the worst possible answer to give in a situation like this. But Fox didn't have to crush the man's fingers. Because a bullet went straight through his head.

The gush of blood splattered on Fox's vest. He looked up. On the building across from him was a shadowed figure. Fox couldn't tell who it was. All he could make out that the figure had been holding a type of blaster. And just as quickly it was there, the figure had disappeared. Kiera came in over the headset.

"Fox get out of there, a signal just went off, and every soldier in the entire region of the city is on there way towards you're direction! Get out of there!" she wasn't joking. Even as Fox looked down he could see the black cars floating up in front of the building releasing little tiny black dots of soldiers coming out the back.

The vulpine pushed a few buttons on his wrist communicator. In a few moments, his gunship was pulling into a stop at the edge of the skyscraper. Fox jumped into its canopy through the large slide doors, up to the cockpit, and flew away into the distance as the plasma blasts grazed at his ship.

* * *

Yea I know the fighting scene at the end was kinda bad, but I figured as long as i keep the storyline rolling it wont be a complete failure...

Fox finds out that Craig, Falco, Slippy, and the two others who arnt important in this story at all, are dead. then just as he's about to learn something else, the sergeant is shot by a sniper across the city street by a mysterious figure, later to be revealed.

please R&R


	20. Chapter 20

Chapter 20

Krystal opened to a blinding light. She closed them quickly, each reaction a stiff errand. As she slowly got up from her makeshift bed, she stretched out her paws and yawned. It was a rough morning but she expected it to be. As she tried stretching her legs she nearly slipped out of the tree she had slept in. of course it was a small pallet and she was fairly surprised she hadn't fallen out in her sleep.

She knew where she was, what was going on around her. She sat silently, taking a few minutes to wake herself up, keeping her heavy eyes open trying not to fall back asleep.

After fifteen minutes or so, she was sure that she was awake enough now so she could get down and continue walking. She didn't know which way she was heading and she was certainly lost in the middle of the woods.

She decided to get out of her tree. She slipped the rifle over her back. Krystal shoved the pistol in her pocket and clipped the grenade belt around her waist. And slowly climbed down the tree. She considered it odd that it seemed much higher last night. Then again, she was tired. Not to mention it was dark.

Krystal drove the thought out of her mind, it was just useless thoughts. It wouldn't help her. What she was glad for, on one hand was the fact that some over the blisters and her feet callused over under the fur of her paws.

Fox cursed and slammed his gear on the couch. He sat next to it letting the couch catch all his weight, as he grew frustrated. Kiera walked over and sat next to him. It wasn't the fact that she didn't know why he was mad. But more over the idea of getting him to admit it.

"Alright, why so pissy?" She tried to make it seem more like the kind of cheery question, but in the end it failed.

"Because every time I get a lead he's right in front of me and I never know it!" Fox smacked the scratched up assault rifle off the couch and watched in clank against the floor. "I need a drink."

Fox forced himself with stiff legs to get up and walk into the next room. Kiera still wishing to taunt him some more followed. She leaned up against the door way as Fox pulled out a bottle of some type of hard liquor and a glass, dropped it on the table and drank. Normally Fox wasn't a heavy drinker, but ever since the problem on the ship all those years ago, he discovered it as the easiest escape of a bad attitude. But what he didn't notice was how bad his temper had grown.

Fox gulped down another glass and poured in a third. He was tired. It wasn't that he was ready to fall asleep due to weariness but more over then the fact of all the thoughts racing in his head. When he had finished four glasses or so he looked around with a wry look on his face. He shook it off.

"He's always one step ahead of me no matter what I do. I mean, its as if he knew I was going to be there. It all seems like bullshit to me." He looked up, Kiera was still leaning up in the doorway watching him. "You've known Craig for some time. Any ideas?"

"None." She tried to smile, but watching his despair wasn't just hurting him emotionally. Kiera was a people person and always tried to be nice, whether nice a sarcastic fox, or a gentle and understanding vixen.

Fox starred at her. It could almost be compared to how he looked at Krystal back when the team was together, before half of them died anyway. No, they were alive, they had to be. Fox had a gut feeling, and his gut never lied.

Fox thought back to Craig. He was always ahead. If what happened today was because of him. Always a step ahead, knows what's going to happen before it does. How is that possible, he would have to be able to see the future.

Or travel to it.

Fox Dropped the now empty glass of liquor in his hand and let it shatter on the floor at his feet. He paid no attention to it as he dashed past Kiera, roughly brushing up against her shoulder. "Fox!" Kiera snapped.

Fox sat down roughly in the chair and dragged his feet to prevent it form sliding too far. And quickly began searching files.

Kiera stepped back in standing in the doorway. "You know I'm not cleaning up that mess you left in the kitchen."

Fox didn't look away from the screen. He was very intent on finding what he was looking for. "I know."  
Kiera walked over his shoulder. "That's not a bad idea."

Fox would have asked how she knew. But he knew better and he hated he psychic powers. They were almost as bad as her mothers. The one thing that separated them when using their powers was that Fox could never know when Kiera was doing it, but he could always feel Krystal's presence in his mind.

"Well, did the email have an actual name on it?" Fox still shuffled through files. As a mercenary he learned not to throw anything away, even the trash on his computer. Lucky for him, Kiera had scanned his mind for anything that bothers him. Her mind was like a computer. Fixing problems and never forgetting.

"Now that I think about it, I don't believe so." She took a long pause and looked over the files scrolling down the page. "It should be under assassinations for this month. Check there." Kiera pointed her small blue finger at a little yellow folder on the list.

The file opened up as Fox double clicked it. There right in front of him was a copy of the letter. He scanned through it quickly. He wasn't looking for anything in the middle, just for a signature. At the bottom where a name should be all that it said was the organization from the e-mail, and the number of pay that would be transferred to his account.

"There's no signature." Fox sat back as if he had just solved a big puzzle. Which he had. Or it may have seemed unless there was nothing special about any of it, and a rival mercenary assassinated the sergeant. Although Fox was pretty sure it wasn't. Actually he had a strong feeling it was Craig.

Kiera sighed. "That means nothing, it's an organization, it could be real. Besides Craig can't shoot a sniper, he's not that good a marksman."

Fox gave a sharp glance at her. "What are you talking about, he's Wolf O'Donnell's son how can he not be able to shoot a blaster?"

Kiera walked into the kitchen, obviously tired of the debate. "Like I'd know?" Fox heard the fridge open and some dishes clack against each other.

Fox sighed, "You're psychic, you've read his mind how many times?"

Kiera walked back into the room with some sort of a sandwich. "I've told you already, Craig's mind is different, it changes and manipulates. Some times I can read it like an open book. Other times its completely blank, like nothing is there. And well, sometimes, but not as much. He just blocks me out entirely, like his childhood. I know nothing about him as a kid. It's like a giant wall. Completely impassable." She took a bite of her sandwich.

Fox frowned. "Fine then we're going."

Kiera swallowed. "Going where?"

Fox got up and walked towards the door. "Well, you said you didn't know his childhood, maybe if we learn something about his past."

Kiera spat out a piece of the sandwich she was eating. "Oh hell no!" But she was too late; Fox was already out the door.

Kiera knew what was going to happen, what she was about to do. The blue vixen ran out the door. Hoping to stop him. Unfortunately, Fox was already flying out of the hanger in his fighter.

* * *

Yea, sorry guys, long time no see. New chapters up, this one has been sitting in my computer finished for like, two weeks, and i just uploaded it now :D

Anyway, Krystal is still running from the soldiers, but her part comes in pretty soon, so bear with me on that half of the story.

As for Fox, he goes crazy about how supposedly the shadowy sniper is Craig. But Kiera says its not. In the end Fox decides on something rash, which will be continued...0-o

Please R&R


	21. Chapter 21

Chapter 21

Fox's ship shed a dim glow as the panel of glowing buttons portrayed colorful lights off the control panel. Fox was asleep, his ship set on autopilot. Foxes face twitched as the control panel made a beeping sound.

Fox sat up and looked at the glowering screen the just switched on. A wry-faced raccoon appeared. "Attention freelance space craft please identify yourself." The raccoon seemed to shuffle through some forms waiting for a response.

Fox flipped a switch activating a microphone. He cleared his throat, "This is bounty hunter craft 06, requesting permission to dock." He leaned back in his chair setting his feet up on the panel. The raccoon turned to his head as if facing a different computer screen. "Please state your business."

"Friendly terms of business." Fox cleared his throat; he was tired of all the futuristic crap. Everything was so organized, even the rebels. Then again they were a large force. The only problem they faced was an army almost four times as big. The empire controlled all of the Lylat systems and everything in between, while all the rebels could do was hide in the outskirts and asteroid fields, praying that they wouldn't be massacred or flushed out, and then later blown apart by large anti-space craft weapons.

The raccoon clicked a few buttons on a keyboard in front of him. "Everything checks out, please proceed to dock four." The screen blanked out.

Fox pulled on the joystick slightly giving his fighter a landing motion as he neared an outcropping asteroid. The one thing that he had to admire the rebels for was their unique way in hiding a base. And it was a very interesting hiding spot. The rebels actually managed to build a base inside the gaping tunnels of the asteroid. That way, the only chance of finding it, is knowing where it was before hand.

Fox lowered his speed and listened as the pressure of the gas added a negative force to the ships inertia. When he was at a satisfactory speed, he slowly maneuvered his ship into a dark tunnel on the surface of the large rock. The orange fox turned a dark corner to an outcropping of lights. There were a series of large doors that entered different docking areas. He tilted the joystick of his fighter sideways as the ship strafed to the left in front of dock four, and rested his ship on the landing pad inside.

Krystal leapt down the small rock ledge with a thud and kept going. She hoped she would at least gain some more distance before the rebel search parties caught up. Maybe if she could find a good place to hide, or at least make a stand. But she had to get away.

Her feet hurt, and she was tired. It's been two weeks she's been running. Picking up plants and berries when she found them. But unfortunately for her it wasn't enough. Sometime she had to resort to eating beetles and grubs just to stop her stomach from slowing her down too much. But everyday got harder and harder, no matter what.

About a half mile or so farther she figured would be a good place to stop. The sun was almost down, and she would need the extra time to find shelter. She didn't know where she was headed, and didn't care. But she had to get off the planet.

Fox walked down the silver hallway. The two guards behind him were fairly lazy, and didn't have a big perspective in personal hygiene. They were dirty, disgusting, smelly, but more importantly strong, and nearly twice Fox's size.

He was very friendly with the rebellion, but would sell them out in a heartbeat for more cash. The only reason they hired him so much was because he was unbeatable. He never failed. But he never got to meet any higher ranking officers then lieutenants simply because he was so dangerous.

The door slid open revealing a large circular room. It had a table in the center with chairs all around it. At the center of the table was a small blue orb on a stand. Probably a star map for strategy against the empire. He never got to meet any higher ranking officers then lieutenants simply because he was so dangerous. This time, he was going to meet with their leader.

The gray wolf sat in a hovering chair. He had no legs, and was missing one eye. He pushed on a joystick on the arm of his chair. The chair hovered around the table. The old wolf looked at him with his good eye. And made three clicking sounds with his tongue. "Well if it isn't Fox McCloud, you sir, should be six feet under. You're supposed to be dead." He smirked and turned his chair the opposite way, hovered around the table and stopped on the other side. He tilted his joystick to face Fox and gave him a serious look.

Krystal came to a clearing. In the center was a big monument. She couldn't tell what it was. She stopped to use her sixth sense to see if anyone was to close behind her. Nobody within range. She ran out to the monument, curiosity getting the better of her. As she got closer. The statue began to become clear. It was a stone Arwing, carved out of a dark shining stone. It stood on a pedestal. The pedestal had a plaque bolted to it.

"Here marks crash site X, where Team Star Fox was shot down by an unknown assailant, all four members were killed."

It gave a list of the names, Fox McCloud, Slippy Toad, Falco Lombardi, Krystal McCloud, and Craig O'Donnell.

* * *

Oh yea epic, sorry, havnt been writing for, a very very long time (4 months or so, idk) Fox finds out from Wolf that hes supposed to be dead, while Krystal continues running from the rebels, comes across the crash site were Fox, Slippy, Falco, Krystal and CrAiG?!?!?!?!?!?! Died.

Hope everyone enjoyed. Please R&R


	22. Chapter 22

Chapter 22

The chair hurt Fox's lower back. He shifted. "These seats are disgusting…" His brows tipped down towards his nose. As he starred at the crippled wolf.

"Yea I know, so what brings you to Sector N?" he moved his chair past Fox as the roamed the room, keeping himself occupied. He slowed and pulled out a bottle of beer from a small fridge on a desk in the corner. He tossed one to Fox. The vulpine caught it, but just lazily put it on the table, ignoring the gesture. "I'm here because your son is pissing me off. Want to share some advice?"

Wolf chuckled. "Yep, a chip off the old block." He chuckled again. Fox was aggravated, as if talking to Wolf wasn't enough, the old cripple had to make things difficult. "Are you sure you don't want to know how you died?"

Fox starred at the beer he left on the table. Wolf chuckled, "Go ahead, don't worry, it isn't poison." Fox gave him a quick glance before reaching over to grab it. He chugged the alcohol.

"So," Fox finished the beer and placed the empty glass on the table. "What happened to Leon and Panther?" Wolf rested his head on his fist. "They went missing around the same time the government became corrupt."

Fox sat up straight in his chair. "So, what is so corrupt about the government, I look around and all I notice is a few troopers hunting down hostile rebels."

Wolf corrected his posture as if to match Fox. "Well, where to begin," Wolf cursed. "A little less then twenty years ago, when you and your band of friends were killed, I'll explain later," he pointed towards Fox to stop any interruptions. "Someone of high political power from some god forsaken galaxy that we have no idea where it is, came to Corneria, destroyed our political system and took over. Now whoever this guy is, established a fake democracy, and is now secretly ruling the system"

Fox began fiddling with the empty bottle still on the table in front of him. "So, how did he manage that, I mean if you know about it, what about everyone else?" He continued to play with the bottle.

Wolf coughed into his hands and wiped them on his pants. "Well when Corneria became desperate to keep it a secret that an over powering army that out numbered us, out gunned us, and for hell had technology that we could only imagine was coming to kill us all. Obviously you would want to decrease panic as much as possible, so General Peppy went ahead and started a program where they took people who technically don't exist is any records, trained them to be super soldiers using our best technology and sent them off to fight along side another army of mercenaries, both our teams being in the army or mercenaries hired."

"Peppy had hoped that with the new combination of super soldiers and mercenaries that they could at least weaken the other army enough so they could bring in regular forces and keep the panic at a lower level. Unfortunately our team of elite soldiers, not as elite as we had hoped. And the mercenaries, hell only a handful survived."

Fox starred deeply into Wolf's eyes. "And what of my team?"

Wolf coughed again and rubbed it on his pants leg. "You and your team were shot down over Katina trying to defend the base, which was later destroyed anyway."

"So you put a base there?"

"What better place to hide a few rebels then in an abandoned and run down base?"

Krystal rubbed her eyes. The plaque was unbelievable. There was no way she was dead. There couldn't be. She was alive. There was a large snap that came from behind her. She spun to face whatever it was. All she saw was the tree line. She scanned the area for any thought patterns, but didn't find any. Then there was a large crash. Dust and stone flew into her. Buffeting her body. Then another. She flinched as more dust flew into her. She coughed to get the dust out of her lungs.

She looked up into the fly debris there were two humanoid figures standing in the dust, all she could make out was the silhouettes before one of them ran towards her and punched her in the stomach. She flew backwards into the monuments and dropped onto her hands and knees and began to cough from the forceful blow to the stomach.

She knelt there on her knees couching and waving the dust away from her face. She looked up at person who punched her. As Krystal looked up, the figure grabbed her with his cold rough hands and lifted her up by the neck. The vixen squirmed and kicked, but her captor didn't loosen his grip on her. She tried prying the man's hands off her neck but as her hands began to claw she felt her fingers cramp and stub. His arms were made of metal.

The metal-armed man threw her across the plain. Krystal's body flew limp in the air as she was flung. The blue vixens back was bent backwards as she crashed into a low hanging branch. She dropped to the ground. She tried to stay awake but the pain was making her body react by going un-conscience. She started to black out.

Nothing.

She began to see light. Krystal squeezed her eyes shut and opened them again, hoping to remain conscience. She was still in the field; she didn't know how long she had been out but it couldn't have been long because the two robotic figures were walking towards her. She stood up, knees wobbling. Most of the dust cleared giving her a better look at her two attackers. One was a black cat, it had parts of his face replaced with metal over the left eye and ear. The other was a green lizard who had metal over his face the same way the cat did.

Krystal gasped, "Panther? Leon?" before she could ask any question, before she could say anything she was hit on the head, and knocked out.

* * *

Sorry for the wait, anyway Fox is talking to Wolf discovering how he died and the conspiracy of Lylat while Krystal gets attacked by Metal Panther and Metal Leon. I hope you enjoy.

Please R&R...please?


	23. Chapter 23

Chapter 23

"You can stay here for however long you need." Wolf flicked the light on in a bedroom. "This is the captain Lenodren's quarters, but he's on patrol around sector V so he wont be back for some time. You can sleep here, bathrooms down the hallway, Cafeteria is two floors below."

Fox walked in and flung his bag that he got from his gunship onto his bed. "Listen, I've been looking for Craig for a while now, and being a mercenary isn't getting me too far anymore other than a recant clue that ended in a dead end, for the most part…"

Before he could finish Wolf grinned. "You want to join the rebels?" He coughed into his hand and rubbed it on his pants sleeve. "Want a team?"

Fox looked at the gray wolf. "Yeah, I may need someone to watch my ass."

The wolf gave him a wink, "I know just who you need. You can meet them in a few hours, for now get some sleep you rat." He chuckled as the door closed. Fox could hear the gears in his chair fade as Wolf floated down the hall.

Fox shuffled in his blankets as the waking bell rang over a speaker. He was still tired from the late night beforehand. He grabbed the pillow and pressed it against his ears to muffle out the obnoxious ringing coming from the loudspeaker in the corner of the room. When the bell finally died off he threw the pillow off the side and kicked the blankets away.

The vulpine stretched and sat up. He didn't waste any more time. He got up, grabbed a towel out of the small shaky dresser. Fox dragged his feet over into a small bathroom. Luckily there was a private shower in the captain's room so he wouldn't have to bathe with all the grunts in the group showers. He kicked off his dirty clothes and clambered into the shower.

The shower handle was a rusty lever that was hard to budge. The water was cold and worse of all disgusting. What should have been a cool, refreshing shower was an ice cold, sludge that came out the end of a pipe in the wall into a tiny tube with a hole drilled into it for a drain.

The "water" hit Foxes head with a disgusting slurp sound. Woken up he quickly realized his gross environment and leaped out of the shower. Unfortunately, Fox's sudden movement managed to make him slip on the soon wet floor. He crashed with a smack as his muzzle hit the floor hard. He got up and rubbed his nose, which was now trickling a little blood. "Screw it." He took the towel from the rack and swiped the blood away, then continued to get the slim from the shower off of his body.

The hallways weren't very clean. The lights were buzzing, and every couple steps he took one would flicker. The halls were well patrolled, and a patrol was a soldier heading to the bathroom. He bumped shoulders with a large bull.

"Watch it." The bull snorted and continued. Fox gritted.

"Yeah, because you can really take me down." Fox kept walking. The chances of someone his size taking someone nearly twice his size was very low. But considering that Fox knew method and had more knowledge of how to keep his balance and the best holds gave him the upper hand. Fox turned around to face his opponent. But the bull had just kept walking down the hall, and probably didn't even hear Fox's threat.

The vulpine continued down the hall until he reached the conference room, where he would meet up with Wolf. Another light flickered. He stopped at the door and took a deep breath. "My team had better be good." He pushed the button that slid the door open with an eerie screeching sound.

Wolf sat in his chair at the table, "Ah yes, your just in time, I want you to meet your new intelligence team, his job is to brief you on all your missions and give you information on the battlefield." He laid his hand out to a short muskrat with round short glasses. Fox recognized him.

"How's it going Jeremy?" Fox pulled a chair over, sat down, and rested his boots on the table cross-legged. Jeremy gave a quick nod, "Nice to meet you again Mr.…" Jeremy tumbled with the words.

"Fox is fine."

"Mr. Fox"

"Just Fox"

Jeremy nodded again, "Yes sir."

Fox grinned he liked the sound of that; he wanted the power of being on top. He missed being a leader. "Where's the rest of my team?" Fox lowered his feet and sat up straight waiting for an answer.

Wolf popped open a beer bottle and took a long swallow. "I believe that Jon is in the medical bay." Wolf took another gulp of the beer.

Fox sighed, "He's a doctor?"

Wolf chuckled and wiped his mouth with his arm to get rid of the saliva. "Yes and no."

Fox walked through the door. Jeremy followed. The medical bay was fairly large, capable of holding a hundred troops or so with minor injuries. But in an emergency crisis would barely hold enough people with serious injuries. Fox walked over to an Ape lying in a bed with, what seemed to be a seriously damaged bone. His arm was bent backwards, and out of the shoulder socket. "Ah you must be the new boss." The Ape had an accent.

"What happened to your arm?" Was the first thing that bothered Fox. He knew that this was Jon since he was the only patient, and there wasn't a medic in the room.

"I twisted it." He chuckled "Its funny because my arm doesn't bend that way, I'm just waiting for the Doc. so that I can file this and be on my way, the base has a policy to report and injuries, I just need to show him, and I'll be fixin' it right back to good."

Fox nodded, he knew the kind, big, tough, and a pain in the ass to kill. "Good to have you on the team, I just need you to sign here so you can be transferred over to my command." The vulpine handed the ape a piece of folded paper.

Fox turned to Jeremy, "Who's next?"

Jeremy flipped through something on a PDA. "We've got Kyle, he's our vehicle support."

Kyle slid from under the fighter jet and grabbed a wrench. Got off of the board and opened up an engine chamber and started to tighten some bolts. "So, you're the new captain huh?" He let go of the lid to the engine chamber and let it fall in place with a loud clap. "I'm Kyle, the driver. You name it I fly it, you find it, I'll fix it." He gave a wide smile as he tossed the wrench in his hand. Fox handed him a piece of paper and a pen. Kyle signed the paper without hesitation transferring over to Fox's team.

The armory was dimly lit. There were rows and rows of different guns and blasters. There was an indoor firing range on the opposite side of the room. The sound of plasma darting from the barrel of a blaster echoed in the hall. Fox walked through the room, feeling and observing every weapon on the racks. A white Cat appeared from around the corner, surprising Fox. And although the vulpine was surprised, he didn't show it. "Can I help you?" she seemed very preppy and optimistic.

Fox looked her up and down. She wore a green jumpsuit that portrayed her curves and fit body to an appealing stature. Fox gulped. "I'm looking for someone named Michele." Fox already had a feeling this was her but he didn't really know how to say he was looking for her in particular.

"Well, you found me!" She jumped up and gave Fox a hug. "Its nice to meet you"

Fox sighed. "I need you to sign this." He pulled out a piece of paper and waved it around in her face. She smiled grabbed the paper and walked away light on her toes.

Fox walked into the control room of the station. Wolf sat there, several beers on the table. He was sitting with someone, but Fox didn't care. "Is this seriously my team? An unlucky punching bag for a medic? A hotheaded pilot? An overly hyper weapons expert? And a guy who can't even point a gun in the right direction for my control room operative?"

Wolf burped and then couched into his arm. "Hey, they're the best at what they do. Besides, you still have one more member you haven't signed over to your team." He pointed to the blue fox that sat next to him. She smiled. "Hi Fox."

The orange fox sighed, "Hi Kiera…" He walked out of the room.


	24. Chapter 24

Chapter 24

The room spun. Most of what Krystal heard was just blurred sentences.

"-Anything else you want us to do sir?" It sounded like Panther, but his voice seemed more monotone, and heavy. There was a cough. A familiar voice lifted up from the shadows that still blurred her vision. "Bring her to the lab." There were heavy steps of boots leave the room before she was knocked on the head again to once again silence the blue vixen.

Kyle grabbed a beer that Jon had slid down the table. The whole team was there. The new one at least. It wasn't exactly Fox's old team, but it did remind him of it. There was Kyle, the hot shot Pilot. He was good, knew his vehicles and knew how to fix them. He was like Falco and Slippy combined, and would most certainly be a good friend to have on the battlefield.

Then there was Jon. The big guy, the medic, and the brick wall. Fox had taken a look at his files. He has years of medical experience. Most of his operations took place on himself. So if he had to do it on someone else, it had to be easier on him right? All Fox knew was that he knew how to do his job, and he'll sure as hell take a punch.

Michele was a nice girl. Very preppy, but at the same time a major threat to anyone or anything that got in her way. Her specialty, guns. She knew her arsenal. The snow-white cat had a reputation for being able to fire any weapon and never miss. Fox was even more astonished when he saw her at the range in the back of the armory. She nailed every shot with every gun. Sniper, machine gun, pistol, shotgun, and those other entire crazy weapon's that Fox had never seen. He had been in that time era for more than two years, and there was still a range of weapon's he had never seen.

And lastly, Kiera, Krystal's daughter. She didn't know her family, with Krystal supposedly dieing in childbirth, and the abandonment of her father. She must have had one hell of a childhood. She was probably reading his mind at that moment, but didn't say anything. Fox never did like knowing he wasn't really safe to think freely.

Wolf coughed and wiped away the dribble of spit protruding from his mouth. "Well team, it's not a big one but it's a mission. I'm sure you guys have met and acquainted yourselves already." Kyle nudged Jeremy with his elbow. The muskrat shuffled catching his glasses before the fell to the floor from being knocked off.

"I don't know how all of you will work together, so I'm giving you all an easy mission. You get to do a raid. There is a convoy of supplies on its way to station 19 of the Cornarian military. Your job is to intercept and take the cargo ships hostage, transport them back here so that we can get the supplies. And I'll send a team down to the hanger to finish the crew."

Fox put his feet up onto the table making him comfortable. "How many fighters are we going up against? If there's a convoy on its way to a base carrying anything they actually need it's going to be well protected." The vulpine leaned back, balancing him using the chair legs as his center of gravity.

Fox expected Wolf to answer, but instead Jeremy stepped into the conversation. "It's hard to give you an exact amount at the moment, considering it doesn't set off for about twenty more minutes, standard planetary time, but station 19 is a descent sized outpost we can easily guess somewhere between five to six cargo transports, so figure two or three fighters to a transport." Jeremy smiled showing he was proud of himself. He was doing his job. He was in charge of telling the team what's happening in the battlefield and what they need to be ready for.

Kyle stood up in up from his chair. "Then let's get going!" He walked backwards out the door back straight, trying to get the team motivated. The door closed in front of him as he continued to walk backwards. After a moment or two of silence, there was a large smack and the curse of an ace pilot.

Light rushed through Krystal's eyes. She blinked them hard trying to clear them. As the hallway she was in became distinguished she realized the top of her feet were rubbing against the floor. She was moving. The blue vixen looked up to see that she was being dragged by one figure by the back of her shirt. She barley recognized the guard carrying her away. Panther had definitely looked different than she remembered. She observed the metal plating on his face. In fact it was his entire body. He wore no clothes, but he didn't have to, his entire body was armored in the metal that replaced his skin and fur. She wondered what had happened to the poor man. Did she dare tap into his mind? She pushed the fear aside, what could happen. The moment she tapped in she saw what was in his mind. Nothing. The new Panther, now realizing she had awakened again, knocked her over the head, putting her into another deep sleep.

The elevator lowered the team of five at a steady pace. Fox stood in the middle with Kiera and Jon at his right. And Michele and Kyle to his left. When the door opened everyone ran out to prepare for take off. Fox looked around. There were five fighter's but his gunship wasn't there. He looked as his feet, gritted his teeth and growled with clenched fists. That ship was over thirteen hundred credit's, there was no way it was gone.

Michele ran up to him and grabbed his arm. "Lets go, your in the military now, you use our ships now." She led him to one of the fighters. Fox didn't like being dragged. He was an individual. He jerked away and walked the rest of his way to the fighter, jumped in and closed the hatch.

On the HUD of the fighter was a helmet. The helmet was painted green with a large black "Z". The entire front was an orange tinted visor that spread to cover the whole face and muzzle. "What's the helmet for?" Fox had never flown with a helmet. It was standard issue for the Cornerian forces back in his time period, but this one was different. It had a full-face visor. The ones, from his memory, only covered the eyes.

Kiera's voice sounded over the intercom of the ship. "It's Z for Zulu, and the green is for the squad, in case your wondering, which I know you are." Fox sighed and shook his head. He really didn't like this, as if having a Wolf for a boss was bad. Now it had to come down to strict military codes. He put the helmet on. The visor, surprisingly didn't give an orange color to whatever he looked at like he had suspected. It was clear like is normal sight, except it had a radar in the bottom left corner. A white outlined display of his ship from the top angle.

Michele spoke over the Mic. "The helmet gives you a view of your ships status, radar, a shade changing visor to help you see in different shade's of light, a filter for dust and toxic gas and it even allows you to breath in space for a few minutes."

Fox nodded. He may be short tempered but anything that can help him in a fight would be greatly taken to all seriousness. "Anything else anyone wants to give me a lesson on?" He wasn't being serious, but Kyle answered in an even less serious tone. "Yeah, you see the handle on your left by you thigh. Slam it forward!" And with that, the vulpine's ship flew out the hanger and into space followed by his new team.

* * *

This chapter was more towards Krystal than anything else. If it didn't envolve Krystal, it was mostly a filler to get the next chapter going.

please R&R and please review, criticism is greatly appreciated :D


	25. Chapter 25

Chapter 25

The jets whirled as Fox tested out the new fighter. He adored the smooth control as he constantly changed directions, testing the throttle and the handling. It was much better than his arwing. It flew forward while facing up, the maneuverability was remarkable. The ship was so agile it would actually take a while to get used to. It was a whole new experience, just like the first time he had ever flown a ship.

On the bottom left of the visor to his helmet had numbers and boxes next to them. The third box started to make lines picking up Kyle's voice making sound waves. Fox twitched as he heard the result of the lines from the communication box. "There are two thing's you need to know about the ships. Each one of our ships has a different…" he paused as if looking for words. "Capability. Mine has the multi-lock function, which essentially allows me to shoot more ships at once. Kiera's has a hacking tool, which allows us all to tap into enemy communications, radar, files and much more. It's sort of like an antenna for Jeremy to gather info from. And a teleportation function, that way she can get around other ships and hit them where they're most vulnerable.

" Jon's has bombs, missile, torpedo's and well, anything that makes a large explosion. He also has a prototype nano-bot that's designed to take Hydrogen on iron to make a gel substance that acts like glue, that way he can make field repairs in space.

"I personally like Michele's. Hers gives her extra speed, accuracy, and packs one hell of a punch from behind with the three auto-turrets. One on the back. One on top, and another on the bottom providing plenty of fire support, her ship is more like a miniature battle station. She doesn't have to worry about anyone getting on her tail."

Fox although enjoyed having the extra fire for his teammates was less patient to ask what his was. "What's my ship do?" He looked around trying to figure it out on his own. But couldn't find it. There were button's he didn't recognize, but he didn't want to do something he would regret. Kyle's voice came back on over the COM link.

"Your ship has two feature's it creates a shield around it that makes it nearly indestructible, unfortunately, it takes a while for the plasma batteries to cool down once they over heat, so it'll essentially leave you dead in space for a few minute's. Leaving pretty much defenseless."

"What else does it do?" Fox was getting eager. He was sure everyone could tell, but he didn't care, the vulpine was excited beyond compare.

"Your ships wings have a dark edge on the front of the wings and on the nose of the ship. If you flick the switch under the safe guard lid on the panel right beneath your radar screen, the plasma batteries that power you ship will convert roughly about twenty percent of the energy they convert to those dark edges on your ship. When the edges heat up enough, which takes a few quick seconds considering it's a big battery, it'll turn your ship into a large knife that can cut through thin metals. no more then a four man squad gunship, but its useful in an area where there isn't as much maneuverability, like rushing a blockade."

Fox looked for the switch, which was right where Kyle said it would be. He wanted to try it out but held back the urge to make sure to only use it in a critical situation, plus he wanted to savor the moment on something that could be blown up.

Michele's squeaky voice came over the intercom as box four on his communications array picked up the vibrations from her voice. "Why not put all the feature into each ship?" It wasn't that she didn't know the answer so much as to letting Fox know so he didn't have to ask.

"Didn't have enough room in the design, I had to add other features."

"Such as?"

Kyle cleared his throat, "Each ship has an infiltrator function, which is the same as an eject, except that it launches you out the bottom at a high velocity in a drop pod. Another feature is the extra rocket booster. It allows the ship to move at a speed that can outrun standard issue SAM's." Each ship has a stealth coating so we won't be picked up on radar and an auto pilot so that if we ever have to get in our ships but aren't close enough to do so, the fighters will come to us. And the helmets have a wireless connection to the ships HUD so we can view all the panels and screens of the ship with a single voice command from up to one eighth of a parsec."

Fox continued to look around the cockpit of the fighter, "Anything else?"

Kyle once again cleared his throat. "There is one more feature that I made sure everyone had, the fuel-air missile. What it does is that it penetrates about five to six feet through any surface before it releases a combination of oxygen and hydrogen and a form of napalm. All highly flammable and rather explosive. And then after releasing those gases and napalm, it lights a spark which sets the whole cloud up in a fiery explosion."

Fox grinned. "That must be a fun toy." He looked around at the cockpit in search for the trigger of the weapon. "Which button is it?"

This time it was Kiera's voice that came over the intercom of the helmet. "Say Visor control, and then say scan." The lines in box two stopped moving as Kiera fell silent. Fox did as she said. A white line wiped from the top down on the visor. And left nothing but a circle in the middle of the visor and every time a button or switch passed through the circle, it left a text on the top describing what each button and switch activated.

* * *

Heray for more fillers!

I tried to make all the ship functions and capabilities believable by putting some scince behind it, but whether it worked or not is up to you guys.

I'm hoping that this one, although a filler, wasn't too bad. it was more to open up parts in the scenes by introducing Fox to knew ways of completing missions and etc.

Please R&R


	26. Chapter 26

Chapter 26

The five dark silver ships cruised through space. Fox spoke up on the radio. "Jeremy, I need a time reading and location of the targeted ambush point." The fox's helmet showed different signs and symbols giving him readings. The muskrats face popped up in a small box in the top right hand corner. He was wearing his glasses and an earpiece that had a small screen covering one eye.

"I'm uploading in to your HUD now. Expect medium resistance, it's a convoy carrying oxygen to station 18. Try not to shoot the tankers." Jeremy adjusted his glasses. " I have a reading of two tankers a six fighters. Each is flying in an arrow head formation, so if you come up behind them you'll have the upper hand for a short time."

Fox nodded, and hit the thrusters. His team followed. The ships rushed through space leaving a red plasma line in their tracks. Fox looked out his window through the orange visor of his helmet. He missed the feeling of the great fox being around. Some of the best moments in his life happened on that ship. At least the old one, the new great fox held some of the worst memories. He trailed off into his memory as his fighter flowed through space, accompanied by four others.

Krystal's mind shuffled with all the thoughts. Everything was dark inside her head. It wasn't a flashback and it wasn't happening right there in front of here. She didn't know where she was. It wasn't a room; it wasn't outside, or in space. It was all just blank. She couldn't think, couldn't feel.

The blue vixen floated in dark nothingness, yet she could think. Her telepathic mind grasping on anything it could, trying to absorb any clues or ideas that would keep her alive. It wasn't until her drifting mind thought of Fox did she become more aware of what was happening.

Her eyes shot open just to blink from reaction as water pushed into her eyes. She gasped as dry air moved into her lungs. Krystal breathed rapidly taking in the air from the shock of waking up out of her disturbing sleep. ^The blue vixen opened her eyes again.

Her eyes adjusted to the liquid that pushed itself into her eyes. She was floating in what seemed to be a clear bubble. She wore nothing but a mask over her face with a tube going down her throat. She looked around the room that held her captive. There were a dozen other tubes with people in similar states. Floating naked in tubes of water being kept alive by oxygen masks over her face.

She tried to move and to kick, but her stiff muscles fought against her. Finally after forcing herself to move, she began to get the feeling in her limbs once again. She stretched out to get the blood flow back into her sore arms and legs before giving the tube she floated in a hard kick. The glass tube broke, spraying glass over the floor as the tank shattered, spilling the water and glass and water onto the floor.

Krystal crawled out, tube and mask still about her muzzle. She reached up and pulled the mask off her face. The she grasped the tube and began to feed that out from her throat. It wasn't until the tube was finally out of her mouth that she realized her limbs were a shinning plated of metal. She crawled around in faster growing panick to find something that would show her reflection. She crawled over to one of the tanks that rested in the room and inspected her body, hoping that her eyes had lied to her for that split second. As if to make her fears come true, the reflection that she saw had turned her into something no longer whole, no longer completely flesh. Large portions of her body that had once been blue soft fur, had been replaced with shinning steel.

She rested onto her knees and began to weep. Knowing what had become of her. She looked up, at the tank again to get one good look at herself again. Her face stills the beautiful features of her seemingly untouched face. And then noticed who was floating in the tank in front of her. She began to tear again as she watched an old friend floating in water right in front of her. Katt.

* * *

Sorry it's so short once agian...I'm not good at writing long chapters...

Anyways, for all of you who will more likely than not get confused. Fox goes on to his first mission, I have yet to decide how that turns out, while Krystal becomes a science project with Katt just like Craig. But wait! Hadn't Craig said that he became from chemical fumes? Did Craig lie? Was the chemical plant he spoke of really destroyed? And if Craig had lied, why did he lie? what is he hiding?

Tune in next time for all your answers here. Oh, and reviews are nice XD


	27. Chapter 27

Chapter 27

"This is Green Zeta one. Target is in range." Fox's orange visor began to give him readings to the space highway. The space highway was a series of rings that were spaced out between key areas of trade and military bases. It allowed small fighters and cruisers that didn't have a pulse engine capable of hitting more than three thousand knots in cruise mode. It basically acted as a catapult to reach a certain speed.

Jeremy's voice sounded off over the helmets intercom. Roger that Green Zeta one. Your target is a supply convoy heading through sector N, highway 8. The convoy consists of six fighters and two cargo ships."

Fox lowered the engines until his ship came to a slow stop, his wingmen followed. The orange visor began to hum as an orange line came down and changed the screen to show the entire teams arsenal. He looked it over, his natural leading skills already making a plan. "Kyle, how do we stop the convoy?"

The communications box opened on the bottom left of the screen. We can use a cruise jamming missile on the frigates, but its on the highway so I doubt that will work."

"I didn't ask what wouldn't work, I asked what would work."

"We can either destroy the ring at the right time to stop the convoy in mid space, or drop a few mines, but that would more likely than not damage the cargo ships."

Fox looked out his window at the rings, trying to decide whether to take the chance of destroying the convoy or letting it get away. "What's our chance of destroying the rings?" This time it was Michele who answered. "About thirty-one point eight percent chance to stopping it close enough to box them in."

"And dropping a mine?"

"Ninety five percent chance of stopping the convoy, but about forty to actually not destroying the convoy itself. But in all seriousness I think we should consider using the mine, Wolf would rather the convoy destroyed than escape."

Fox looked down at his feet. He had never taken part in a mission like this. At least that he couldn't remember.

"We drop the mine. Kiera and Michele I want you to destroy the cargo ships turrets, if it's a military convoy we have to suspect that the transports are armed. And be careful, you have to take down all of them. Kyle, Jon and I will take out the fighters."

Jon's engines began to glow as he approached the middle of the docking ring. A small metal ball with a large red dot on the top slipped out the back of the ship. Jon flew back into formation, the deed being done. The team was silent. Guns on the joystick and ready to hit the throttle.

In seconds the docking ring began to shoot four beams that met in the center to make a circle of blue energy that almost looked like dust choreographing into a shape. Fox's hair stood on end. It wasn't that he was nervous, but attacking Cornerian ships, it didn't feel right to him.

There was a silent explosion as fiery ripples discharged and vanished. The quick light blinded Fox for a millisecond before he could make out the shapes of the cruisers, then the fighters that began to break formation and engage the vulpine's squad.

Fox hit the throttle and engaged one of the fighters flanking off to his left, his squad right behind him. The two groups of fighters rushed into each other. Swerving around the obstacle the other team created to avoid crashing while shooting off a serious of shots in attempt to damage the others ship. Fox spoke his orders. "Jon, Kyle from my left and protect Kiera and Michele from the rest of the fighters."

"Roger"

"Understood."

Fox's squad mates followed up on his left to provide cover support for the girls. He was glad to have someone on his side again. It had been a while since he had someone to fight with. Except Bill, his old academy buddy. Back at the office building. He didn't recognize him at first, Bill certainly changed a lot.

Fox blinked as blue flashes zoomed past his right wing. The views of the blast making Fox feel a cold chill down his spine. He was used to being shot at, but that blast was too close for him to be in a comfort zone. He pulled up hard on the control stick and added to throttle, dodging more attacks from the fighter on his tail.

As he pulled up there was a green flash right in his face as Kyle shot down one of the fighters just above him.. "One down, five to go!" he could feel the satisfaction in Kyle's voice over the communications line. Fox looped downward and spun to get right side up. Fox took a shot at the fighter that had been tailing him. He pulled the trigger and watched as several shots protruded from the ships cannons. The ship he had been aiming at wasn't destroyed. The blasts had cut through the shields and scorched several large holes in the hull, but were still in flying condition.

The enemy fighter pulled up to get out of Fox's fire zone. The orange fox pulled up too catching the fighter on its rear as he launched an array of shots again, destroying the enemy ship in a green explosion. "Enemy down. Kiera? Michele? How are those turrets coming?"

Kiera sounded off the intercom. "We've disarmed one, and the others only got a few more." She sounded contempt; most of the fighters were busy taking out him, Kyle, and Jon.

Fox heard a grunt as one of the fighters got hit with one of Jon's homing missiles making an array of red and green fire quickly turning into nothing but floating plates of metal. Then another as Kyle destroyed another fighter.

"Fox!" Jeremy boomed over the communications line. "Get out of there! There's a fleet of battleships exiting hyperspace at your location! Abort the mission! I repeat abort the mission!"

He was right, Fox's radar made a beeping sound as six large blips dashed into his view. The six battleships began firing at Fox and his team with their anti-air turrets. Fox pulled hard on the joystick to pull in the opposite direction. "Team! Abort the mission and set up a waypoint back to base. We'll lose them in the asteroid belt."

Wordlessly, Fox's team entered formation, charged their cruise engines, and was off in only moments. Letting their ships shields take the beating on their escape.

* * *

Been a while since I've written, so i decided to get back into it before i forget about it. Sorry its been so long. Hope you enjoy. And please excuse the horrible battle scene, I'm no good at describing battles. T.T


	28. Chapter 28

Chapter 28

"What the hell happened?" Kyle's scream sounded a little scrambled over the intercom. Fox wasn't too happy about it either; his first mission was a failure. He'd never failed before. "Our Intel was off." The vulpine pushed a button on the HUD of his ship. "Jeremy, you there?"

There was a buzz on the communications line, almost like static. He could hear someone's voice. It wasn't Jeremy.

Fox spoke into the communicator again. "Come in, Jeremy that you? What's going on? Jeremy come in." the connection died. Fox switched channels back to his wing men. "Do you guys have a clear signal?"

"No."

"Nothing."

"It's dead."

Fox scowled. His luck was beginning to run out, and he knew it. "Slippy, give me a status report." The words slipped out of his mouth. He didn't know what he said. There was a pause on the communicator. Kyle's voice turned in. "Who's Slippy?"

A tier began to form in his eye. The truth was he missed his old team. And he hated himself for letting them split up. Both Falco and Slippy dead, Krystal in the middle of god knows where. He felt alone. Just because you're standing next to someone doesn't mean you're not alone. True loneliness is a loss of connection, communication. And he felt alone.

"Status report now." He didn't want to explain. He didn't have to.

"Long distance communications are dead."

Fox sighed, his luck was running out. "Any other damage?"

This time Kiera's voice sounded off.

"Shield batteries are low on all our ships. Michele And I both received slight hull damage from the turrets on the cargo ships. We have about one more hour of oxygen left, with the re-breathers on."

"What happened to the communications?" This troubled Fox the most. They only had one hour to get to a port, and the only friendly one was the base back where they came from, which was suffering from lack of communication to the team. It didn't seem right. "How many other teams were set out on a mission today?"

Fox picked up another message from Kyle. "There were supposed to be three patrols out at one time, they are supposed to switch out every two hundred hours interstellar time. One patrol showed late, after that well the data is clean."

"Shit. Engaged thrusters we're going deeper into the asteroid field." Fox hit the engines and marked a way point marking deeper into the asteroid field.

"What's wrong Fox?" Michele sounded a little worried.

"The patrol was late, means they must have been engaged, if they were seen on radar the base would have acknowledged them and put them on the listing for returning, but if their communications were down, the patrol wouldn't have been able to tell the base they were engaged and being followed. So the base was attacked after logging the patrol in. Our long distance communications are down, which means someone doesn't want us in touch with the base. Our whole mission was a distraction, that's why the battleships showed up, they knew we were coming."

Jon's pale and emotionless deep voice sounded off. "What does that mean?"

Fox cleared his throat, "It means…we're being followed."

* * *

So its been about...I'd say forever and a half since I posted, I forgot about this story for the longest time. Again I apologize for it being short, I just wanted to post before I forgot.

So, Fox and friends escape, and find out why their plan failed.

Spooky .


	29. Chapter 29

Chapter 29

"Who the fuck is following us?" Kyle screamed over the com link, the connection sounding fuzzy over the headset inside the helmet. His attitude reminded Fox of Falco and his loud mouth. It had to be something with ace pilots and their attitude.

"I don't know."

Kyle came back on to the comm.. "What do you mean you don't know? You wouldn't be running away if you didn't know! They only had two battleships the fuel-air bombs could have easily taken it out if we landed a good shot. I say we turn around and kick their ass."

"Kyle shut it and stay in line. You don't know what's back their, two battleships could easily turn into five in a few seconds, especially with pre-set coordinates." Fox felt his words hit hard. He was really tiring of people and their attitudes.

"You're right though, those battleships are probably going to be given orders to assist in the assault against the base, we're going to have to take them out soon. But not now, I want to lead them into the field, we'll have the asteroids to cover us, their anti-air cannons will have a hard to keeping up with us."

Jon cleared his throat, "So what do we do?"

Fox pushed bushed a button that his helmet pointed out and switched one of the screens on the HUD to show his arsenal. Four anti-air missiles, two guided bombs, two torpedos and a fuel-air missile. Probably enough to take out the two battleships like Kyle had said. But Fox had something else in mind. "Kyle, you said the ships had a cloaking field generator right?"

"Yeah, why?"

Fox coughed.

"Because we need to lose the guy following us."

"Kat, slow down. I need to rest." Krystal put her arm against the white tiled wall. She began to pant. It was hard on her, getting used to her new limbs. The metal rubbed against where it met her skin.

"Kat slowed down to return an answer. "Okay, okay, but not here. We need to get out of here before he finds us." They were both bare skinned and wet. The buildings temperature was near freezing, making physical conditions extremely hard.

"Who the hell are you talking about?" Kyrstal start panting, now finally resting her body.

"The hooded man that you saw. We need to get out of here before he finds us." Kat looked around for somewhere better to stop for a rest.

"I don't understand, who is he?"

"I don't know, but he's not normal." Kat walked over to crystal and got down to her at eye level, resting on one knee. "He can't find us, I don't know who, or what he is. But he will hurt you, and he will kill you. We need to get out of here." Kat stood back up and started to jog again.

Krystal gave a loud sigh and followed after her.

* * *

Okay, another one is up. Please comment, its my only real encouragement.

Hope you enjoy


	30. Chapter 30

Chapter 29

"Do you see him?" Fox could see the outline of Kyle looking out both sides of the cockpit of his ship. "He's on my radar but I've got no visual."

Jon cleared his throat, speaking in his heavily accented voice. "Just keep going, we're almost there."

Fox played with his HUD before speaking up, forcing the buttons to make quiet beeping sounds. "Okay, Kyle and Keira flank off now. The two broke formation silently, one turning Kiera turning left, Kyle turning right.

Krystal could feel the pulse in her entire body as her heartbeat increased. The vent was warm, stuffy, and a little more than claustrophobic with her and Katt trying not to make a sound while army crawling through the ventilation shafts. Their efforts were more or less wasted thanks to the metal limbs that clanked against the aluminum of the vents.

Krystal could barley see flashes of light ahead of her before Katt's dark silhouette blocked the light from the end of the shaft. Getting glimpses of small blood streaks, rust, and what looked like decaying fur. last person in these vents didn't last too long. That had to be a long time ago since the blood stands were dried and the hair nearly disintegrated.

There was aloud bang as Katt punched the through the grate and crawled out into another room. Krystal followed behind her landing clumsily on her face. Her new limbs were still hard to coordinate simply because she wasn't used to them. The blue vixen peered up to see the room. Katt had made her way to the door and leaned with her back against the wall. The door had a rectangular window on the right side allowing a peak into the hallway just on the other side. The room was too dark to make out anything other than the cat moving on finger to her lips signaling Krystal to be quiet.

She listened. At first there was nothing, then the clanking of metal footsteps coming down the hall. Slow and steady. Krystal listened harder trying to use her other senses instead of taking the risk of being noticed by her sixth sense. After moment she realized that there wasn't one pair of metallic legs. There were three.

And they all stopped outside the door were the two women were hiding. Crystal could make out the figure of someone standing just outside the door. It stood there for a few seconds before continuing its way down the hall, followed by the other three that crystal could see close behind the first.

Katt waited for the sounds of the footsteps to go away. "Okay, we should be just outside the hanger, we can stole away on a cargo transport and fly out of here."

"How do you know all these things?" Krystal got up into a kneeling position. It was a simple question, but it had an odd effect. Katt's eyes brightened as she heard the words. Unfortunately it only seemed to be a glimmer to crystal due to the lack of light.

Before Katt could speak, someone passed by the door again, causing the conversation to be cut short. As the steps quieted, Katt took a quick glance out the window checking for any more passing guards. "I'll explain it later. Right now we need to get out of here. Two doors down the hall to the left is another closet. If we get separated, make your way to th-" She got cut of as the door blew in knocking them both off their feet and into the wall. Krystal could feel her back begin to bruise as she hit the wall, her face smacked into a wall as he was ricocheted off the back wall. The door, still in one piece fell on top of her, covering her body. The room spun, she tried to get up but the door pinned her down. Krystal could hear shouts in her dazed condition as people ran over the door covering her, pushing harshly on her weak body. She heard Katt scream as the Katt was dragged away. Krystal tried to move, but the door continued to pin her down. Krystal finally managed to squirm her arms up towards her chest and pushed the door off of her.

Krystal peered out the door. She could see two soldiers dressed fully in their gray, sleek armor pull Katt's limp body around a corner to her right. The opposite direction to the hanger. Krystal was never one to abandon a friend. She chased after the guards in hops to save Katt. By the time she turned the corner, they were gone.

* * *

So I actually wrote! I ACTUALLY WROTE! In all honesty, I completly forgot about this until I checked my email after a gajillian years. Don't be angry.


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